Polarity
by A. X. Zanier
Summary: Sequel to Opposites Attract
1. Part 1

Author: A. X. Zanier

Rating: R (language, violence, adult situations, sexual content)

Disclaimer:  I do not own the characters or basic story premise to "The Invisible Man."  Any additional characters or story premises are mine.

Timeline:  Approx. one year after "Opposites Attract"

Spoilers:  BK, TCh, JA, Impetus, F2B, Lesser Evil

Comments:  Okay, so the first one kinda screamed for a sequel.  The plot bunny of a different color bit me, hard.

Be warned, the characters are a lot darker than portrayed on the show.

Rebecca(WorkerCaste) gets a big honking credit for tightening this one up for me and figuring out how to say the missing bits that I kept getting stuck on.  Oh yeah, and a pretty good Beta job as well. BEG

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Polarity 

_So this schmuck named Nietzsche once said, "Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!"  The man had no idea, no idea at all. _

The wailing sound penetrated through the covers, the pillow, and the deep sleep, causing an arm to snake out from under the snug embrace of the blankets and into the cool air of the room. After a moments random searching, it slammed down atop the alarm clock on the nightstand next to the bed. As silence descended and the hand slipped back under the covers, a sigh could just be made out as the unseen body shifted, attempting to settle back into sleep. Then the wailing began again. This time both hands appeared, pulling the pillow tighter over the head that was presumed to be under it.

"Fawkes, just get the damn thing," a voice -- a decidedly female voice -- grumbled from the other side of the bed.

"And why can't you, Miss five-star-A-rating?" a hoarse male voice growled in response.

"'Cause it's your place and not mine, Fawkes," the female voice countered, then rolled, lifting the pillow to look at the face of the man. "Then you can come back to bed."

One eye opened and glared balefully at she who dared to lift the pillow. "I just went to bed, don't wanna get up."

She sidled closer to him, pressing her bare skin up against his. "Are you sure about that?"  Her voice was husky, seductive, and got the attention of at least one part of his body.

"Uh, not any more," he admitted, as he felt more and more of him attain that horrid state of wakefulness. He and Monroe had started sleeping together about five months ago, though both would freely admit it was only out of convenience. And while both would agree that it had been anything but planned, once begun they had managed to find some small amount of comfort in each other.

It was anything but true love. They'd both had that once, and both had had it ripped viciously away from them. Small comforts were all they could afford anymore.

After a few minutes of grumbling about women and their ways to blackmail men into anything -- to which the response was a throaty chuckle -- the pillow was knocked to the floor and the covers thrown aside. A lanky figured appeared, wearing very little, just a long silver chain about his neck with a small square of clear plastic hanging from it. Embedded in that plastic was an ID microchip that had belonged to someone he'd not seen in a year.

If the woman sprawled on the bed felt any jealously about the fact that he wore a memento of another woman, she had never mentioned it. After all, she wore a similar chain, with a heart-shaped locket. For each of them, what they wore on those chains were reminders of events that had made them who and what they were today. And it bore very little resemblance to who they had been a year ago.

Fumbling about, he found his boxers and pulled them on as he stood, noticing dispassionately that they just barely fit. He'd lost even more weight in recent weeks, as bad news and anniversaries piled on top of one another, stealing both his appetite and his will to live. Shuffling around the bed, he headed towards the front door, where the sound -- he was awake enough now to realize it was not the alarm, the phone, or the door buzzer -- seemed to be emanating from.

It was the brightly-colored bag and basket sitting on his pool table that caught his eye. Changing targets, he found the source of the sound lying in the basket. As he looked down, for a long moment he believed he'd truly gone off the deep end. He reached out with a shaking hand, confusion on his face, to touch the squalling item, quieting it for the moment. Gingerly, he lifted it up, cradling it in his arms.

"Uh, Monroe, is there something you want to tell me?"

On the bed, Alex shifted and looked over at him, leaning back again the pool table holding a..... "Fawkes, where the hell did that baby come from?"  Getting out of bed, she grabbed her bathrobe, slipped it on, and joined Darien. He was gazing down at the infant with a stunned expression on his face.

"The stork would be my guess."  The infant had brown hair, with red highlights that were easily picked up by the light in the room, and blue eyes that were a surprising contrast to the dark hair.

Alex began looking through the bag that sat on the pool table. "Well, everything you could need is here. Clothes, formula, bottles, diapers, toys, but nothing to say who left him." The child began to fuss again, no longer amused by the finger it had been sucking desperately on. "You been fooling around and not telling anyone?"

Darien turned his head to glare at her. "Just with you, Monroe."  He tried to hand the infant to her, but she backed away with her hands raised.

"No way. Been there. Done that. Had my heart ripped to shreds."  Her look had gone very hard.

"Monroe, just hold the kid while I figure out how to make a bottle." When he gave her no choice, she took the child in her arms, trying not to let her anger show.

Darien grabbed what he needed out of the bag and wandered to the kitchen. He set some water to heat in his tea kettle and looked back at her, holding the baby with a look of near-panic on her face. He knew how hard this had to be on her. Losing her son five months ago had nearly broken her. Her facade of callous disdain, once a thin veil disguising a caring woman beneath, had become a permanent part of her. The caring woman had died with her son, leaving only an empty shell behind.

After the funeral, with guilt eating at him, blaming himself for what had happened, Darien had very nearly joined her in her attempt to end it all, but somehow, with the guilt and the pain to share between them, they had just managed to get stinking drunk and fall into each other's arms instead. That tiny bit of solace, shallow and jaded though it might be, was all that kept the despair at bay for either of them.

The shrill whistling of the teakettle brought him back from his quiet observation of her. Yawning and rubbing the back of his head, he poured eight ounces of water into one of the bottles and set it in the fridge to cool. Then he filled two more, knowing they'd be needed later. They just had to keep the baby distracted until breakfast was ready. Looking over at Monroe, he watched her set the baby on the pool table and begin to undress it. Almost as if she'd done this many times before, she pulled the items necessary to change the infant's diaper out of the bag.

"Well, we have a little girl here, Fawkes."  Darien moved closer to see for himself. "A couple months old at a guess. Healthy."  She finished with the diaper and looked over the infant, though for what Darien was unsure. Looped about one ankle was a bracelet, like an ID bracelet. Examining it carefully, Alex made a discovery. She removed it and showed it to Darien. "Look familiar?"

The short metal strip contained what looked like a data chip, identical to the one Darien wore on the chain about his neck. Running one had through his hair, he muttered, "Ah, crap."

Bobby leaned over the sleeping infant that lay in the basket on Monroe's desk. They were trying to keep the Official and his trained pet, Eberts, from finding out about her until they knew a bit more. Calling Claire had been necessary -- she was the Agency's doctor and the only one who could make sure she was as healthy as she appeared to be. Monroe had removed the ID chip from the bracelet and was trying to access the data on it.

"So, Fawkes, you been sowing your wild oats with someone other than Monroe, eh?"  Hobbes looked over at his partner, who was slumped in the leather chair across the room. The scar that curved about Bobby's right eye was standing out more than usual in the bright light of Monroe's office. He'd gotten that injury in the explosion that had broken Monroe; none of them had walked away unscathed that day.

"Yeah, I've been leaving a trail of condoms and quicksilver all over town."  Sarcasm dripped off the words. "Get real, Hobbes."  He shifted leaning his head onto his hand and closed his eyes. He hadn't gotten more than a couple hours of sleep, needed his medication, and was tired of being needled about the baby being left on his doorstep.

Monroe looked over at him. "Darien, go down to the Keep. She'll be fine here, and it'll be a little while before I can break the encryption on this. No reason for you to be in pain."

Turning his head, he met her eyes, her look just as flat and lifeless as he knew his was. "Alex, that pain is the only thing I have left."  But he got to his feet, knowing that from here is would get progressively worse, very quickly, and would leave him incapacitated in mere hours. He didn't say anything else as he left the room.

What was there to say? He didn't blame Claire for what had happened. She had tried, really tried, to solve the riddle of the gland. So when computer test models for a gene therapy treatment, the one Kevin had hinted at when living in Darien's body, had proved promising and testing on rats had gone well, she'd told Darien. He, fool that he was, had jumped right in without bothering to look first. The fall had been hard and painful.

So now, as Darien walked down the darkened hallways of the Agency, he tried to ignore the weakness that ran through his muscles, the numbness across his face, and the pain, the dull throbbing that, while directly related to the gland, had nothing to do with the madness. Oh yes, he still suffered through counteragent shots to prevent his id from taking over, only now there was no slow increase of symptoms; it was literally like a switch was being flipped in his mind. One moment he'd be his usual dark and depressing self, and the next he'd be evil Cousin Id and trying to do the most damage to the most people possible in the shortest amount of time.

The Keeper's little attempt to make things better had only made them worse.

He slid the mag card through the slot and watched the door slide open, but he didn't immediately enter. Just stood there, looking into the dark room that reminded him more and more of a mad scientist's secret dungeon laboratory every time he saw it, with him as the Frankensteinian monster that had been created within.

He didn't immediately see Claire when he entered, but that was nothing unusual. She could be in any of a half dozen labs, working on any number of projects for the Agency. Taking care of Darien and the gland had become routine. Now that there was no chance it could ever be removed safely, it was simply a matter of keeping him as comfortable and functional as possible. Oh, she was still doing research into preventing counteragent tolerance and improving the painkillers for the headaches. Keeping him from becoming addicted to the painkillers was a challenge, considering the drugs she was forced to use. She'd had to create some of them herself so that he wasn't forced into having to take more after only a few hours. That meant more needles. Like he wasn't already a professional pincushion by this point.

He moved over towards that hated chair, hated more because he knew he couldn't survive without it. The Keeper had trained him well and, although there had been a time when he would have done anything to get away, even fight little things like sitting in the chair, he no longer bothered. There was little point, just one more day to get through with some semblance of sanity. Sitting there, one leg drawn up to his chest for his chin to rest on, he heard the Keep door slide open and the tapping  of Claire's shoes on the floor. She came into view looking over something in a folder. She'd cut her hair a few months back and it now came down only to her chin in sharp, razor-cut layers.

"Hey Keep."

She turned around to glare at him and stormed over. Waving the folder at him, she snapped, "Something you want to tell me?"

Darien stared at her blankly, not having any idea what she was talking about, or what was in that folder. "Sure, if you'd give me a hint as to the topic."

She glared harder, if that was at all possible. "I should have known that the two of you slept together. It should have been obvious after what happened between us."

Darien didn't even bother reacting. They'd had this 'discussion' far too many times already and he refused to talk about it any longer. "Keep, what the hell are you talking about?"

She took a good look at him and then sighed, instead of screaming like he had expected. "You need a shot, don't you?"  She didn't wait for him to answer, simply moved to prepare it for him. When she returned with the syringe, she seemed a bit calmer, for which he was thankful considering where this injection had to go.

Turning sideways on the chair, he tipped his head down, allowing her easy access to the back of his skull. With a practiced motion, she slipped the needle into the back of his neck and up into the gland, where she released the contents. The painkiller would be distributed into his system along with the quicksilver the gland leaked into him. He didn't even flinch, the pain of the needle being insignificant in comparison to the headache and numbness swiftly building. The needles, the headaches, and the madness were all minor discomforts these days. The emptiness, the hopelessness that lay on his soul, was so much greater, and there was no medicine for that.

As the pain began to fade, feeling to return, he lifted his head to look at Claire. She seemed worn out and saddened about something. He got to his feet and went to her, setting a hand on one shoulder.

He'd never meant to hurt her, hadn't really noticed that she'd cared for him as anything other than her Kept, had truly thought it was Bobby she'd been attracted to. He'd been very surprised when she'd told him the truth about her feelings, and he'd been unable to return them. He'd been forced to explain that their one night of passion was a drug-induced mistake. It had done irreparable damage to her and their relationship.

"Are you okay?"

She laughed harshly. "How many times, Darien? How many times did you sleep with her?"

It was Darien's turn to sigh. "Why does it matter?"

She jerked away from him, picked up the folder, and slammed it into his chest. "It matters because that child upstairs is your daughter."  When he just stared at her, she continued. "Yes, Darien, you are the proud father of a baby girl. Congratulations. Oh, and yes, Michele is the mother."

She stalked away from him while he tried to process the information she'd all but hit him over the head with. That meant.... that meant they *had* slept together that last night. His memory had never returned completely and, what with all the midnight romps his mind had conjured up with her, he'd figured the few disjointed images he had recalled had just been another dream, one that left a stronger impression than most.

Convincing himself to take up forward motion, he caught up with Claire just as the door to the Keep slid open. "Where are you going?"

She shrugged out of his hold. "To inform the Official, what do you think?"  When Darien began to protest, she snapped at him. "That child has quicksilver in her system and may have other talents that I can't discern at this time. Besides, how do you intend to keep this a secret, Dad?"  She sneered the last word at him.

"Claire, that child upstairs has nothing to do with you."  Darien snapped back. "Don't take your anger at me out on her."

She laughed bitterly. "That child has everything to do with us. Her mother is the reason you not only slept with me but spurned me after. I have every reason to be angry."  She stalked off then, presumably to inform the Official that is prize receptacle had screwed up yet again. Darien leaned against the closed door and wondered if this time, finally, the Official would order the gland removed. It would kill him, but he wasn't sure he cared anymore. In this mood, Claire might even agree to perform the operation.

"Damn it, this is not the shit I need right now," Darien snarled into the empty hallway. As he made his slow way back to Alex's office, he wondered what the hell Michele had been thinking by dumping the kid on him. He'd spent one damn night with her, had found in her something that had been missing in himself and in his life, and then had it torn away, leaving him empty and lost. They had never found any trace of her or those who had taken her. He found himself standing, staring sightlessly at the wooden double doors of Alex's office, not quite willing to go in and face what he knew was there, what a large portion of him could not believe was real.

With a shaking hand, he opened the door and entered. Hobbes and Alex were huddled over the computer, having broken the encryption of the ID chip at a guess. He caught Alex's nervous glance over in his direction, but said nothing and simply walked over to the infant still sleeping peacefully in the basket. He could see it now. It was subtle, given how young the child was, but there. The hair was an eerie combination of his and hers, with soft curls instead of 'Chele's tight coils or his slight wave. The face was a softened, rounded version of hers, though the chin was all his. She opened her eyes then and looked up at him, with an intelligence that was almost frightening.

"The chip doesn't give her a name, just a code number," Alex said quietly, and Darien forced himself not to react. "She..."  Alex's voice shook slightly when she continued. "She's your daughter."

Darien nodded. "Claire told me. I still don't believe it."

"Fawkes, there's more. According to this, Michele had twins," Hobbes said a bit ruefully. "You sure you don't remember anything about that night?"

Darien shook his head. "Not enough. Hell, Hobbes, how many times did you dream about Claire a year ago?"  Darien turned to look at him and was surprised to see no anger in Hobbes' face at that. "Whatever they hit me with did one hell of a job on my memory, as you well know."

Hobbes nodded in agreement. Even with the problems involving Claire, he and Fawkes had discussed that night several times. But except for some vague images and odd feelings, there was never much to go on. Her clothes had been strewn across his apartment, along with his, but there was little else. He had never remembered any details of what had happened, how she had been taken, the fight that must have ensued when her kidnappers had broken down his door and come in shooting. The blood they'd found in his place hadn't been Michele's, so they -- or more likely she -- had managed to do some damage before the goons had been successful in their task and dragged her out of his life.

Hobbes' words suddenly sank in. "Wait, you said twins?"  Hobbes nodded. "Where is she?"

"He," Alex supplied. "A boy and a girl."

Darien met her gaze, but she was a complete blank, hiding whatever she was feeling about this situation very carefully. She'd lost her son forever, while he suddenly found himself with two children that he'd had no knowledge of. "Well then, where is he?"

"We don't know."  Hobbes answered truthfully. "But I doubt Michele has gone far."

"Why is that?"  Darien asked as the infant began to fuss. With only the slightest bit of hesitation, he picked her up.

"She hasn't, Fawkes."  Alex's voice was tight. "Trust me, I know."

The next several days fell into a weird routine. When Darien had to work, the baby -- he was calling her Cat, simply because he had to call her something -- would be watched at the Agency, much as Alex's son had once been for so short a time. He did his work with the same lack of enthusiasm as he had for the last year or so, and at the end of the day, or night in some cases, he would return to the Agency, collect his daughter, and take her home.

The Official had been less than pleased with the situation. In fact, he'd been down right apoplectic at first; Darien had been convinced he was going to have a heart attack and collapse right in front of them at one point. He'd never seen the Official that angry before. Even after some of the more rebellious and stupid stunts he'd pulled over the years, never had the Official actually had that look that said 'if I could afford to remove the gland, I would.'  Darien was willing to bet that all that had saved him was the cost. The 'Fish had also made a point of saying he didn't give a damn about the child, that she was going to be far more trouble than she could ever be worth, and that, if it wasn't for the fact that he had no idea who had taken Michele, he would have shipped the little inconvenience off in a heartbeat.

Darien wasn't sure how he felt. He'd had a responsibility dumped on him by a woman who obviously didn't give a damn about either him or the child and, for some reason he couldn't fathom, that hurt. He managed, though, surprising himself by having a knack for knowing what to do. He was lucky that she was a fairly calm and quiet child and, with the exception of the very first night, she'd usually sleep a good six hours at night, which he could live with.

Which is what he had been attempting to do tonight, but for some reason, at the unholy hour of three AM, Cat decided she wanted to be conscious and fussy, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out what was wrong. He'd checked her diaper, tried a bottle, carried her about for a bit, and finally ended up sitting on his bed, propped up by pillows, while she fussed and waved her arms about in the air as she lay on his chest. He ran fingers through her hair, trying not to notice how soft it was, trying not to care for anything other than the fact he was losing sleep, trying to calm her. He was gradually putting himself to sleep listening to her when she suddenly went silent and still, causing him to be instantly wide awake and wary. Which was why, instead of being in a state of deep unconsciousness, snoring into his small apartment, he was fully awake and prepared for the unexpected when his door was smashed in.

He reacted by quicksilvering both himself and Cat and rolling off the bed. Carefully, he moved over to the bassinet and set her down in it, hoping she'd continue to be quiet, and then retrieved the nearby bat he kept around for occasions such as this. Circling around his bed, he got the first one, who was checking out Darien's bathroom, with a solid hit across the back of his shoulders, knocking him to the floor. The focus of the other four immediately swung to him and he couldn't help but notice the stylish thermals all were wearing. Their weapons, rather impressive-looking guns, turned towards him, and he muttered a heartfelt "Oh, crap."  A baseball bat wasn't much of a defense against automatic weapons.

Darien let the quicksilver fall away and dropped the bat, not really wanting to become a target for their close range shooting practice.

"Where is she?" the guy in front of him barked.

Darien just stared at him, not willing to answer, and not really knowing which 'she' he was asking about anyway.

"The baby, fool. Where is she?"  It was then that Cat chose to make her presence known. The guy in front of Darien scanned the room and located the bassinet on the far side of the bed. Gesturing with his head, he said to the others, "Get her."

Two moved over towards them, while one remained in place, guarding the door.

Darien found his voice as the two men loomed over the bassinet. "Leave her alone."

"Why, Mr. Fawkes, we were under the impression that you would be far happier without her. Don't worry, she's going home."  The thug took a step closer to Darien, the gun coming up in a manner that just screamed threatening. "And it's not like you'll be around to concern yourself with the situation anyway."

Much to Darien's surprise, the threat actually scared him, and he found himself not wanting to die. But even so, some deep protective instinct had kicked in. "I said, 'leave her alone'," Darien snarled.

Whatever the goon in front of him was about to say was lost, as the one standing guard at his door was yanked into the hallway by some unseen force, hitting the far wall with a solid thud that was anything but painless. The guy in front of Darien whipped around at the sound, and Darien took advantage of the distraction. Bending down and grabbing the bat, he swung low and connected with the guy's knees, making him scream and collapse.

When the goon tried to bring the gun around to bear on Darien, the bat swung again, smashing into the man's forearms and breaking them with a wet snap. The guy screamed and passed out from the pain.

Spinning about, Darien was surprised to see one of the two remaining thugs go flying, leaving a smear of blood on the wall next to his bureau. The other suddenly seemed to launch himself backwards out the window near his sofa. There was silence for a long minute as Darien looked about in bewilderment, not quite understanding what had just happened. Then Cat began to wail.

The bat fell from his hand as he rushed to her side, hoping she was all right. He had to step over one of the kidnappers to get to her, but he found her unhurt, just frightened at a guess. Lifting her, he made his way towards the kitchen, the one area without a body lying in it. He grabbed his phone off the counter, knowing he had to call someone, but not quite sure who. It was pulled out of his hold.

"Show yourself," he snapped. Half-expecting Arnaud, he was shocked speechless to see Michele appear before him, quicksilver flakes scattering across the floor. She looked different -- her hair had been cut short and she had lost a lot of weight, was whipcord thin and all muscle. And she seemed to be scared, of him.

Stepping forward, she held out her hands for Cat. Darien reluctantly released the baby to her mother. Michele spent a couple minutes getting reacquainted with the child before lifting her head to meet his eyes. "Hello, Darien."

"'Chele, what the hell is going on?" He wasn't sure whether to be angry, stunned, or relieved. Just seeing her brought up a lot of memories, both pleasant and painful, and he found himself torn.

"Later, Dare. The second team will be coming soon when these guys don't show. Get dressed so we can get out of here."  When he didn't move, she took a step closer and set a hand on his chest. "Please. I promise to explain what I can."

He nodded but still didn't move. Instead, his hand came up to caress her cheek as if to make sure she was real. "'Chele,"

"Hurry."  She gave him a slight smile and urged him into motion.

Once the momentum had begun, he found himself dressing quickly and throwing a few stray items into the diaper bag; when he had everything he could think of, he headed to the door where she was waiting. "My car is out front," he said as they left the apartment and headed down the hall.

She shook her head. "It's bugged. We'll have to go on foot, quicksilvered for a bit. I've a clean car stashed a couple of blocks from here."

"Michele, they have thermals."  They reached the last door before going outside, and he could feel the hairs crawling on the back of his neck. He hated being watched, being followed, hated this covert shit that always ended poorly.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him close; he felt her quicksilver flow over the three of them. *_I know. Trust me.*_

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	2. Part 2

Part 2

Once in the car, Cat safely secured and sleeping in a car seat in the rear, Darien turned to her again, wanting, needing an explanation, but was unsure what to say, where to start. Somehow she'd managed to fall back into his life, in nearly as shocking a manner as she had the first time. Michele started the car and pulled out onto the street, heading out of town. After about ten minutes of uncomfortable silence, he said, "Michele, talk to me."

She sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything?" When she shook her head and glanced over at him he amended his request. "What happened that night? Last thing I remember is watching the movie."

"Buckaroo Banzai. I remember."  She reached out with her right hand and set it atop his thigh. "And it really doesn't matter at this point."

"Doesn't matter?"  Darien kept his very frayed temper, but just barely. "I find out that not only did we have sex, but also that I'm a father because you dump one of the kids on me and bail, and it doesn't matter?"  He grabbed her hand in a painfully tight grip. "Pull over."

"Darien, I..."

"Pull the fuck over," he shouted at her.

With a soft growl of anger, she did as he directed, pulling off the side of the mostly-empty road and turning off the car. The soft ticking of the engine as it cooled was the only thing that could be heard for long minutes.

"Darien, I am not the sweet, scared little 'Chele you thought you knew. That was an implanted personality for a mission. A mostly successful mission."  She faced him, unafraid to meet his eyes.

"Mission? Seducing me was your mission?"  His voice was low, dangerous, and full of anger. From the back came soft sounds of unhappiness and Michele gave him a shove towards the door.

"Out. Before you wake her."  She opened her own door and climbed out, walking to the front of the car where she waited for him.

Darien glared at her back, debating the merits of sliding into the driver's seat and taking off with Cat. Michele turned around to look at him, almost as if she knew what he was contemplating. With a sigh of pure irritation, he remembered that she probably did. He leaned over the back of the seat to check on Cat, who had settled back into sleep, then climbed out of the car. "Talk."

"Darien, you were never part of my mission. Not directly, anyway."  She leaned back against the hood of the car, her hands stuffed into the pockets of the beat-up jeans she was wearing. "I was after the quicksilver project info and the stored samples of Kevin Fawkes. Nothing else."

Darien didn't know what to think. She was nothing like the scared child he'd known, the one who'd fought back to some semblance of adulthood in the few weeks he'd known her. The woman he'd stupidly fallen for and spent the last year trying to find, fearing what horrible things were being done to her, what horrible things she was being forced to do. Only to discover.... "So, it was all a lie," he said, voicing his thoughts.

Michele shook her head. "No, just carefully disseminated truth from a different perspective. The people I worked for have an agenda, just as yours do. They just have more leeway in how they go about it."  She shuffled her feet a bit before continuing. "My memories about who I was were altered, but how I felt -- feel -- about you was never a lie. Was never part of the programming."

Darien broke out in harsh laughter. "Bullshit. You played me to get what you wanted and now you have a new game going on. I don't want any part of it."  He strode over to her and grasped her upper arm, making her wince in pain. "You are going to have a little chat with the Fat Man, and when it's over I expect your ass will be thrown in prison."

"If that's what you want, but then you'll never see your son." Her voice was soft, resigned. "That's why I left Cat with you. I needed to know she'd be safe while I tried to get him, but Corvan's hunters found me first."  She lifted her head to meet his eyes. "And please let go of my arm, it hurts like hell. I'm not going to run away."

He released her slowly and found blood on his palm. The sleeve of her shirt dark and damp with it as well. "Crap, what happened?"

She ignored the blood as if it were unimportant. "I found the tracker they'd implanted and removed it. Bitch to do, considering I'm right-handed. Darien, I swear I had no idea they were going to grab me that night. I didn't know about the tracker till a few days ago when I caught one of the hunters and made him talk. They must have implanted it years ago..." She trailed off when he said and did nothing.

"Michele, what the hell am I supposed to do, supposed to believe?" The anger had lessened, but was still there. Confusion and indecision were quickly building, though.

"How about this?"  She took his hand into her own, shocking him slightly, and then everything was being dumped into his mind. Images and feelings that flashed through, leaving him with impressions and knowledge that was hers.

Instead of jerking his hand away, he pulled her closer. He now knew what kind of hell her last year had been. Locked in a cage for most of her pregnancy, giving birth there. Having her -- their -- son taken away after only a few short weeks. Her desperate escape with Cat -- Katherine -- shortly after so that she could get him back. And maybe most important of all were her feelings for him, for their children. Those feelings had been the one true thing about her. She hadn't wanted to leave him. Would have stayed if she could, tried to leave those she worked for as soon as she learned the truth, but had been caught.

"'Chele, who has him, who has Kitrick?"

"Chrysalis. A jerk named Stark," she answered, stepping back out of his hold. "Look, I promise I'll explain everything, but we have to get someplace safe. Eventually they'll figure out that the rottweiler I shoved the tracker on isn't me, and the guys in your apartment are awake by now. The Agency will be watched."

Darien thought about it for a moment. They were going to need help whether or not she was willing to admit to it. "Would they be watching all the Agency personnel? Or just the building?"

"I know they've been watching you, Monroe, and Hobbes, but the guy I interrogated wouldn't have had knowledge of what the other teams were doing. Standard procedure in case of capture," Michele explained.

"Jeeze, who do you work for, some black ops agency?" Darien asked rhetorically.

"Did work for, and no. We're a lot deeper than just some black ops agency."  Darien's eyebrows went up at that comment. "Darien, you have enemies you don't even know about and an amazing number of them work for the same government you do."

The comment reminded him eerily of the one Allianora had made to him so very long ago. She'd been right, and he was sure Chrysalis was only the tip of the iceberg. Michele's words both frightened him and made perfect sense. After being forced to work for the CIA, and the troubles with the SWRB, learning that there were even more dangerous government agencies came as no major surprise. Who to turn to was a problem. His first two choices had been Hobbes and Monroe. Claire was a possibility, but he could see a fight breaking out within seconds if he showed up on her doorstep with 'Chele in tow. There was no way in hell he could go to the 'Fish; the man had made it clear he had no interest in the situation, and if he knew the hunters were here he'd turn over both 'Chele and Cat to them without a moment's hesitation. There was one other possibility, one who had helped in a similar situation in the past.

"I know a place."

She didn't ask. "Okay, lets go."  She tossed the car keys to him and moved to go past him, but he stopped her.

"'Chele, I..."

"Don't. Not now. Wait till I've had a chance to tell you everything. Then decide whether or not you can forgive me."  She slipped away and got into the rear of the car with Cat.

As Darien climbed into the driver's seat and adjusted it, he could only wonder what other bombshells she had to drop on him.

He turned off the lights and engine in the driveway of the small suburban home. He sat there for a moment, filled with indecision. Did he really want to bring the Agency into this? The Official had already made his position clear where it came to Katherine; would he really give a damn about her brother, or her mother? Turning slightly, he looked back at Michele. She was dozing, one hand resting across the car seat where Cat was still sleeping. Michele needed the rest; she was pale and had deep, dark circles under her eyes -- she looked like she had a pair of black eyes, they were so dark. She was thin, too thin, her veins easily seen under the skin, her cheekbones, collarbones standing out prominently.

She opened her eyes suddenly and looked right at him. "If there was any other way..."

Darien shook his head. "You need to get some rest first."  He slid across the seat and climbed out the passenger side, then opened the rear door for her.

She handed him the diaper bag and then unhooked the infant seat from the base and climbed out with Cat. "Why did you start calling her Cat?"

Darien shrugged. "It seemed to fit. You did know my mother's name was Katherine?"  He set a hand on her shoulder.

"I know, and Kit's named after my grandfather. A translation of sorts from the Irish." She leaned against him as they walked. "Not that it matters."

He wanted to ask her how she knew his mother's name, why she would even bother? She was right, though, it didn't matter, not right this second anyway. "Hold up a sec, 'Chele." She didn't argue and waited on the steps as he went to the door. Ringing the bell, Darien figured he'd end up having to pick the lock to get in, so he was very surprised when Eberts opened the door after only the second ring.

"Fawkes? Darien? What's wrong?"  Eberts was dressed in standard flannel pajamas, his hair sticking up even more oddly than Darien's.

"I need a favor."  Darien hoped like hell Eberts wouldn't turn him away just on principle, would at least give him a chance to explain the situation. He wanted to prepare Eberts for what was sure to be a heck of a surprise, but the chance was taken out of his hands.

From behind Darien, Cat decided to wake up. Eberts twitched, recognizing the sound. Darien shifted to check on the two of them and Eberts vocalized his astonishment. "Michele?"

"Hiya, Ebes. Can we come in for a bit?"  Michele didn't bother trying to hide the exhaustion in her voice. If Darien were to take a guess, he'd say she hadn't slept in several days, had been worried sick about Cat, and he knew she had expended a fair amount of energy saving his ass earlier. "If it's a problem we'll go. Darien said we could trust you."

Eberts nodded and moved out of the way, allowing Michele to enter with Darien right behind her. He wasn't sure if it was Michele's backhanded proclamation of trust or the fact that Cat's whimpers had turned into full fledged cries that had convinced Eberts, but his look said that he and Darien were going to have a bit of a chat. "Is she all right?" Eberts asked about Cat as he swung the door shut and locked it.

Michele was lifting Cat out of the car seat and smiled over at Eberts. "Just hungry."

"On it," Darien said, setting the bag down on the sofa and pulling out one of the pre-filled bottles and can of formula mix. He headed for Eberts' kitchen to warm it. Eberts followed him, but stayed in the doorway, watching mother and child carefully.

"Fawkes, are you nuts? We have standing orders to hold her. Someone wants her and is pulling major strings to make sure she is returned." He turned to Darien and dropped his voice to a near whisper. "And they're not being picky about what condition she's returned in."

The microwave beeped. Darien pulled the bottle out and tested it for temp before adding the formula mix and screwing the top on. "Dead or alive, eh? Makes you curious as to why, doesn't it?"

"Very," Eberts admitted.

Darien moved past him, back into the living room, and handed Michele the bottle. He waited for a moment to make sure Cat was going to eat. He shouldn't have worried; she went at the meal like she'd been being starved for days. He ran a finger through her hair and forced himself not to smile when she focused up at him even as she attempted to finish the bottle in record time. "I have to talk to Eberts. Will you be okay?"

Michele smiled up at him. "We'll be fine. Thanks."  She focused back on Cat and began to pace around the room, trying to keep herself awake until Cat had settled again.

Darien returned to the kitchen where Eberts was starting some coffee. Seeing as it was almost dawn anyway, there wasn't much point in going back to sleep. "Eberts, thanks. For helping, I mean."

"Darien, do you have any idea what is going on?"  Eberts poked his head out the doorway to see Michele still pacing slowly about his living room.

"Not really, but I believe her when she says she's in trouble."  When Eberts frowned, he tried to placate him. "She just needs a place to sleep for a few hours, and my place is not an option."  Darien's brain caught up with reality then. "Damn. Look, we're here because some guys broke into my place. They tried to kill me and take Cat. 'Chele stopped them."

"Darien, you should have mentioned this sooner."  Eberts moved to his phone, but Darien stopped him before he lifted the handset.

"Eberts, she needs a break. Just a few hours. Please?"  Darien hadn't exactly been the best of buddies with Eberts for the last year and was really hoping he'd fold where Michele and Cat were concerned. Hell, he needed a few hours to sort things out himself. It must have been the 'please' that convinced Eberts.

"I won't mention Michele, for now. I'll just send the Maid service to your place. But I can only cover for a few hours."

Darien nodded in agreement. Michele had a lot of explaining to do, to all of them. "Thanks, man."  Darien began to search through the cabinets for the coffee cups and, once he had found them, poured each of them a cup. Eberts was deep in conversation with someone on the other end of the phone line and gave Darien only the slightest of nods when he set the coffee cup down. Eberts was making notes on a pad of paper that had magically appeared out of thin air.

Darien moved to the doorway to see that Michele had given up trying to remain awake and had sat down on the sofa with Cat in her arms. The bottle was empty and set aside. Cat was quiet, but still awake, while Michele was asleep, her head resting along the back of the sofa, one of her fingers tightly clutched in one of Cat's fists. Darien revised his impression of her ability at motherhood. Cat was obviously happy and healthy, considering the circumstances, and Michele had worn herself out over the last few days. Gently he removed Cat from her arms and, after taking a minute to just hold her, set her in the infant seat and handed her the annoying little squeaky toy that looked like a demented duck and was, for some mysterious reason, her favorite.

Standing up, he looked down at Michele. She appeared even younger than he remembered. Seeing her hurt, in so many ways. He'd thought she was long gone, trapped in a life she hated, forced to do things she wanted no part of. He'd thought she was like him. And now he was learning she was the exact opposite. Eberts came out then, carrying a couple blankets and pillows.

"I have a spare bed she can crash on..." He trailed off, seeing that Michele was already sound asleep. "You're welcome to it then, Darien." Eberts handed him the linens. "I have to head into the office in a bit. You can stay here for a few hours without a problem. I've left a message for the Official, explaining the situation without mentioning her."  He nodded at Michele. "You have to bring her in. You must realize this."

Darien could argue the point, but chose not to. "Sure, if she's willing."  He set one of the pillows on the sofa and shifted Michele until she was lying down, curled on her side, a sigh escaping her as she relaxed into a deeper sleep. He pulled off her shoes and then tossed one of the blankets over her. "Did I thank you, Eberts?"

"Yes, you did. Get some rest. I'll call you when we know it's safe to bring her in."  Eberts shook his head and left the room, turning off the lights as he went.

The sky outside the window was just beginning to lighten as Darien lowered himself to the floor to sit next to Cat, who was happily waving her arms about and kicking her feet hard enough to rock the seat she was tucked into. "Well kid, looks like it's just you and me again."  He gave her one of his fingers to abuse and watched her until she drifted off into slumber a short while later. Looking from daughter to mother, he wondered exactly what the hell he was going to do now.

Darien awoke with a start, a crawling sensation running up and down his spine. He felt something moving along his shoulder. With more than a little trepidation, turned his head to see, not the spider he expected, but fingers. Michele's fingers, slowly moving in random patterns across his shoulder, light touches that were more than enough to conjure up images of spiders crawling upon him as he slept. He ran his fingertips lightly upon the back of the hand the fingers were attached to and found himself oddly comforted. It was different than what he felt with Alex, the bitter solace of two people who had nowhere else to turn, no hope, no joy.

He shifted, his back aching from sleeping on the floor, his head pounding in that oh-so-familiar way he had learned to hate, and looked over at Cat, who was still sleeping peacefully. She'd managed to curl up half on her side and looked like a kitten, boneless and irresistibly cute. He closed his hand around Michele's, trying not to feel anything, but unable to stop himself. He still cared about her, even if she wasn't quite the same person he'd known. What she'd let him feel -- experience -- last night told him that enough of her was the same for him to still want to be with her.

Michele was sprawled on her stomach, her face turned towards him and anything but relaxed, though she still slept. He was tempted to wake her. He needed to talk to her, to discover where they stood with each other, whether or not she ever really cared. Darien had still been awake when Eberts had left just before six AM and he had yet to call. Darien wasn't sure if that was a good or bad sign.

'Chele opened her eyes then and met his. "I'm sorry, Dare."

He released her hand, which she moved to run through the hair on the back of his head, making him sigh as the pain eased slightly. "For what?"

She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, her look desperately sad. "It's my fault you have these headaches. That Claire's plan failed. I'm so sorry."

Darien was confused. She couldn't have had anything to do with Claire's screw up, she'd been long gone by then. "'Chele, it was not your fault. We should have done more research first...."  She was shaking her head. "All right, explain it to me."

She sat up, pulling her legs up cross-legged on the sofa, hugging the pillow to her chest. "I left a way into the computer system for my agency, so they could monitor your progress with the gland research, among other things. I had programming implanted that I enacted when given the opportunity. The back door was part of it."

"The Keep's computer is on a local system. There is no access from the outside."  Darien said to her, resting a hand on her knee. He was wishing she'd continue the massage of his scalp, his head was one huge ache that told him he'd need more medication soon.

"Doesn't matter. There are ways of dealing with that."  She set her hand atop his, allowing him to feel what she was to a degree. He was surprised to learn she was nearly consumed with guilt over the situation. "They wanted the status quo maintained, and that meant you working for the Agency. So using my back door, our techs reworked the solution to create the headaches instead of reversing the process that causes the madness."

Darien's hand tightened on her leg, squeezing what was surely hard enough to hurt, but she failed to react. "You did this to me? You're the reason I'm trapped in this hell-hole of a life?"

"Indirectly, yes. I take full responsibility for it."  She met his eyes without flinching. "All I can say is I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"  Darien got to his feet and backed away from her. "You ruined what little life I had and all you can say is 'sorry?'  You have no idea what you've done to me, what my last year has been like... Maybe Monroe was right. What the hell is the point?"

Michele slumped where she sat. "I warned you to wait until you heard everything."

"Anything else? Any other wonderful news you have for me? Perhaps you should just put the gun to my head and pull the trigger -- it would be far less painful." His head flared into agony, driving him to his knees as the numbness began to spread, making it difficult to think, to react normally. He had no idea how long he was there on his hands and knees, trying to focus through the pain, before he felt hands easing him into a sitting position.

"Let me help. Please?"  Michele was at his side, her hands attempting to get the muscles in his shoulders and neck to relax and, while her touch helped, her presence only caused more pain, more agony on his heart and soul.

He laughed bitterly. "Help? You mean hurt don't you? Another knife thrust into my back, another dagger into my heart, another..."  He was shouting now, not thinking beyond he was hurt and wanted it to stop, wanting to share the pain, wanting to hurt her as badly as she had hurt him.

She set one of her hands across his lips and he stopped, looking stunned that she would have the audacity to do that. "You will terrify Cat if you continue," she hissed in anger.

Darien batted her hand away, without any real strength behind the movement. "Bitch. She's your brat and nothing but an inconvenience to me. What the hell do I care?"

"Lie to yourself if you must, but you do care. And it scares you." 'Chele rested the hand he'd moved on his chest, over his heart. He knew it was running at trip hammer speed, just below the level where the quicksilver would flow, and he couldn't convince it to slow. His anger, his pain, and her presence kept it elevated. She was right and, at the moment, he hated that fact. "Let me help you."

He still didn't trust her. "How?"

She held up what looked like an oversized nicotine patch. "This will counteract the effects. The pain, the numbness, the weakness. It was designed at the same time they created the flaw."

"You created, you mean."  The anger was still there, burning merrily in the background.

She shook her head. "I'm not that good. I stole what I could before I left. That included exactly what they did to you and this.... this leash."  She waved the patch between two fingers. "Hopefully Claire may be able to reverse the problem with the information."

Hope flared momentarily in Darien's eyes, in the depths of his soul, only to be overwritten by another wave of agony that radiated out from his head to leave his entire face feeling numb and knowing there was no way he could stand. A groan, which he tried to hold back, escaped, and Michele acted before he could prevent her. Peeling open the package, she slid up his sleeve and set it on his arm.

"Claire's solution of having the gland distribute painkiller is unique, but pointless."  She held him in a firm hold until the even he could feel the drug making its way through him. It was nothing like the combined cooling and burning rush of the counteragent. It was more like someone had removed a layer of dirt and grime from him. Over the course of several minutes, his entire world went from dark to light. That thick cloud that had been hanging in front of the sun for months was...well, not gone, but thinned dramatically.

"Michele?"

"Claire didn't catch the depression side effect, did she?" As Darien sat up, she caressed his face with her hands. Her fingers ran through the hair at his temples. "Better?"

"Yeah, better than I've been in a long time. What the hell is in that thing?"  He was impressed; the painkillers would leave him high as a kite more often than not, at least at first, but allowed him to function for the most part. He knew he'd been unhappy and severely depressed, but neither he or the Keep had thought it might be anything but the natural result of everything that had happened. The last year had worn all of them down.

Michele shrugged. "I really don't know. I could recite the formula and the attendant explanation, but I haven't studied enough to really understand it. I do know the headaches and the depression were chemically induced and that this fixes it temporarily."

"How long?"  He wanted to know how much time he had clearheaded, how much time he had before the darkness closed back in, before the pain, both physical and emotional, returned.

"Each patch is good for twenty-four hours. I brought a score of them. Hopefully, with the info in my head, Claire should be able to duplicate them and eventually undo the damage. Maybe even get the gland out of your head, finally."  Michele rubbed her eyes and moved away from him. "I swear I didn't know they were going to do this to you, or I would have stopped them. I... I need to talk to the Official. There's so much that he, and you, need to know. I don't expect you to forgive me. I just wanted to fix what I could."

That sounded bad. "Fix what you could? What does that mean?"  Darien got to his feet and went to Cat who had awoken at some point, but had stayed quiet while he and Michele had talked.

"She likes you," Michele said quietly from her position a few feet away on the floor. "That's good."

"'Chele?"  Darien crouched down next to Cat and picked her up before turning to look at her mother. 'Chele had gone very pale and was drawing in deliberate breaths almost as if she were trying to keep herself from becoming violently ill all over Eberts' floor.

"I... I'm okay. Just a little off."  She got to her feet slowly and put a hand out to lean against the wall for support. "Can you watch her for a couple?"  Darien nodded not sure what was going on. Michele looked sick, sick beyond what exhaustion had done to her. "Thanks." She stumbled away, headed for where Darien knew the bathroom was.

Cat proceeded to thwap him with one tiny fist to get his attention back on her. "Silly, like I could forget you."  He noticed the pair of duffle bags sitting on the floor and moved to them. One was stuffed with clothes for both Michele and Cat. The other had... stuff. Papers, notebooks, disks, dozens of pill bottles. Pictures. Lifting one, he got to see his son for the fist time. It was a documentation shot, with a code number across the bottom, but he could see the similarity to Cat. Kit's hair was far darker, identical to Darien's own hair, his eyes still birth blue, his mouth set in a grim line of unhappiness, an ID bracelet wrapped about one ankle.

"We'll get him back, Cat. We'll bring him home."

Cat waved her arms and cooed. It was nice to know someone had confidence in him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	3. Part 3

Part 3

The Official was frowning at the group both standing and sitting in the room before him. At least he wasn't shouting anymore, though Darien was beginning to wonder if it might have been better when he was. The icy silence was extremely uncomfortable and had been going on for several long minutes now.

"Sir..." Eberts tried, only to be silenced.

"Shut up, Eberts," the Official barked. Then he turned on Michele, who had been leaning against the wall near the door. "What is it you want from me?"

"From you, from the Agency? Nothing. I won't even explain why I was here before, or why I'm back now, if you don't want to hear it. The information is highly volatile."  Michele didn't bother moving.  She'd already piled all the papers and disks on the conference table, without explaining what they were about. Darien had a pretty good idea. "You have to decide whether or not you're going to cave in to Corvan's threats and hand me and Cat over to him."

"That will depend on what you tell me."  The Official had calmed himself a bit, the red flush retreating from his face and neck. "Begin with the QSX Project. What is it?"

"Me," she said matter-of-factly, which irritated the hell out of the Official. "Look, you know the history of quicksilver, the problems adapting it to living tissue, I was -- am -- the first success."  She moved until she was leaning at the end of the conference table facing the Official. "The theory was simple: inject infants with a drug that the body would develop a counter for. In this case, the counter was quicksilver. Other effects were induced as well -- the heightened neurotransmitter function, the ESP-type abilities, though that effect was random. Out of two hundred original test subjects, five survived to puberty and only one was successfully brought to full functionality. Me."  She tipped her head to the side. "If it wasn't for me, your QS9000 projects would never have happened. And you know it."

Claire got this really strange look on her face that Darien caught before she got it back under control. "Keep, what is she talking about?"

"You mean she never told you?"  Michele turned to look at Claire, who pursed her lips and glared at the other woman. "Of course not. Wouldn't want to upset the dear boy, now would we?"

The Official cleared his throat. "That information is highly classified, Miss MacTierney."

"I just bet it is," she said in a sickly-sweet voice. "Most of what I'm going to tell you is highly classified. So what? You afraid of him knowing the truth?"

"That particular truth is unnecessary at this time. Wouldn't you agree?" Eberts tipped his head slightly as he looked at Michele, who gave him a small nod of acknowledgment.

The cogs had been spinning in Hobbes' head and he chose to toss in a question of his own. "Are you saying there's more like you out there?"

Michele shook her head. "Like I said, only five of us survived Phase I of the project. I was the only successful Phase II recipient. Two went insane with minimal abilities, one died outright, and the last survived, with an increase of abilities, but unable to quicksilver effectively." She turned to the Official. "Do you need name, rank, and serial number?"

He met her gaze without fear. "Later."

"So who is this other survivor of the process?" Claire asked, the anger in her tone warring with honest curiosity.

"My brother," Michele answered without turning.

"Jacob or Patrick?" Eberts asked.

Michele began to laugh. "Oh no. Not either of them. You didn't figure it out?"  She pushed away from the table and circled it, heading back towards the door with all eyes following her. "You did all that work to find out who I was and you never figured it out? No wonder I was able to play you all so easily."  She bent down for her backpack that she'd left on the floor and rummaged through it, coming up with a couple of pill bottles.

"So why don't you explain it to us," Alex growled, her look dark.

Darien kept his own face neutral. Alex had been very unhappy to know Michele was back, almost as upset as Claire, and he had to wonder why. Their... relationship, what there was to it, was convenience only, or so he had thought. Alex had been distant since Cat's arrival. Maybe this was inevitable. He was going to have to talk to her. Michele's return, permanent or not, couldn't change how they had relied on and helped each other for the last year. He didn't want it to change, but as she turned to look at him, he knew it had.

Michele opened the bottles with shaking hands and dry swallowed pills from each. "I have a twin brother who was also part of the project." She leaned back against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor.

Alex groaned. "The weird birth certificates. One wasn't an error; your parents gave you near-identical names."

"Huh?"  Hobbes asked for everyone else.

"Michele --- Michael. Fraternal twins," Alex explained. "Damn it."

"I wasn't expected," Michele commented. "And my parents never intended us to be part of the QSX Project. That was serendipity."

"'Chele?"  Darien was afraid she was going to collapse again, like she had at Eberts' house. She claimed that it was nothing, but he suspected it was something, something serious.

She waved her hand, hanging her head between her knees until the drugs kicked in. "Look we, me and Mikey, both knew we were different, starting about the time we turned thirteen. If it wasn't for him, I might very well be either dead or locked in a nut-house somewhere. Somehow, together, we got through the ordeal of our abilities kicking in and gained control of them."

"Who? And how long have you been working for them?"  The Official asked from behind his desk. It was obvious he didn't care what was wrong with her so long as he got the information he wanted.

"At one time, the group was known as Mirage,"  Michele answered without lifting her head. "Things have changed since its creation, goals have altered, plans made. They go by Changeling now, though you'll never find a record for it."  She lifted her head and smiled slightly. "Much like this agency."

Hobbes snorted. "Mirage is a Cold War myth. Government urban legend."

"They become legends for a reason, Robert."  Eberts sounded so very smug.

"Trust me, Robert, they exist. My parents were killed by them, to ensure I would be free to join their ranks. Hell, I was designed for them." She pushed herself to her feet. "Mikey got involved about the time we started college, months before I did. My parents found out and tried to stop them."  She shrugged, almost as if she didn't care that her parents had died. "I officially joined the day I turned eighteen and was legally an adult. I finished college and they arranged for me to disappear."

"You could quicksilver back then?"  Claire asked trying to find out what she could.

"No, they only solved the Phase II riddle about a decade ago. Between me and Mikey, we've accomplished a lot."  They all looked at her as if waiting for the next shoe to drop. "Mikey is a very strong telepath and empath. We were very... close for a long time."

"That doesn't really explain why you are here now," Hobbes stated flatly.

"She's trying to get her -- our -- son back. Stark has him," Darien answered. He got to his feet and moved to Michele's side. "Sit, you're still not feeling well."  With him supporting her, she settled into one of the chairs around the conference table. Claire looked over at her with the eye of a doctor, but said nothing. Her anger, her near-hatred of Michele, didn't allow any real sympathy. Darien grabbed the nearest chair and sat down next to Michele, offering what little support he could.

"Why would Stark be interested in your children?" Alex asked, her animosity for Stark and what he did to children warring with her intense dislike for Michele.

"For the same reason he was interested in acquiring me," Michele answered, without really explaining anything.

"Kid, just tell us. Cut the run-around bullshit. We get enough of that from the Fat Man over there," Hobbes snarled at her. No one was very happy with her return, or with learning the truth about her purpose here a year ago.

"You know about a gentleman named Arnaud de Fohn?"  She didn't allow Hobbes' attitude phase her; it was a small price to pay.

"Yes, he made an alliance with Stark and Chrysalis just a few months before you originally arrived. The alliance has been uneasy at best and caused us some difficulties," Eberts recited in that steady voice of his. Out of all of them, Eberts was the only one besides Darien with some small amount of concern for Michele and her situation.

"Which is why I came."  She paused, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. "Stark wanted the quicksilver tech for his breeding program, Arnaud wanted to be visible, and they both wanted Darien dead. Arnaud's quicksilver information was flawed, as his condition proved, so Changeling was asked to secure the information for them."

"Why? I mean, why didn't Stark just send some Chrysalis goons to steal the information?" Hobbes asked.

"Several reasons. Stark knew you were watching him and that if he attempted to break in and steal the data you'd come after him with guns blazing. Even though it might have gotten him Darien's head on a platter, that still would have caused far more trouble than it was worth."  She rubbed her eyes before continuing. "Changeling and Chrysalis are... allies. Some of our goals overlap, so we have an exchange program of sorts. This was one of those occasions where we could get the information far more easily than they could, though we made sure that we were allowed to do it in our own way."

"You pretending to be running from them. An impressive act," Alex sneered.

"My job. You've done similar work in your career. Don't get all pissy just because I was good enough to fool you," Michele snapped right back. "Look, this is getting me nowhere..." she started to get to her feet, but the Official stopped her.

"You are not finished. Why does Chrysalis have your son?"

"To put it simply, with his DNA they have access to quicksilver tech that doesn't require an artificial gland with flaws."  Michele told them. She gave them a minute to absorb the information. "When I was here, I did that one job with the guys. That's when Chrysalis learned about me. They put two and two together, figured out I worked for Changeling, and asked for access to my genes. Corvan refused. When Stark found out I could quicksilver, without the side effects of either Arnaud or Darien, he became rather insistent. Then we confirmed I was not only pregnant, but carrying twins."

"And this Corvan bargained one of the children away to keep you," Alex summed it up succinctly with a frown.

Michele nodded. "I found out about it and tried to quit."

"Kid, you don't 'quit' a place like that," Hobbes commented, in a tone that implied she must be a complete idiot.

"Robert, I'm no fool. I wasn't gonna just hand in my typed resignation in triplicate and be all polite about it. I was planning on blasting my way out if necessary, but Corvan had a plan to keep me in place without risking harm to the babies. It worked. I didn't escape until just after Kit was taken, and I stole everything I could before I did."

"Wow, this sounds familiar."  Alex glared over at Darien. "Remember Eleanor Stark?"

Darien nodded. "And so does 'Chele. She didn't steal the stuff to buy her way back in. She stole it to hopefully break Changeling."

"Why?"  Eberts asked.

"Because they need complete secrecy to function. Once that's gone, they'll be forced to dismantle and start over. Which means I and my children will be safe."  She shrugged. "I only went to Darien for help because I couldn't break into the place Kit is at with a baby in my arms, and I didn't want to tip off Stark that I was here yet."

"What else is there?" Claire asked as she examined the handwritten notes on a case containing several disks.

"The alterations we made to your gene therapy treatment for Darien, as well as the counter for the side effects. As you can see, it's quite effective." Michele looked over at Darien and Claire did the same. She suddenly realized that he was looking better than he had in months.

"Darien, are you a complete fool? How can you trust her after everything she did?"  Claire didn't even bother hiding her disgust, and Darien didn't bother making any comment. She wouldn't listen to a word he said anyway.

The Official cleared his throat to get their attention and head off the cat fight even Darien could see coming. The trouble was, he was pretty sure Michele would win.

"There is one other issue to be dealt with: Kevin Fawkes."  The Official leaned forward against his desk to watch her reaction.

Michele kept her look bland. "We wanted to clone him and needed the samples for that."

"Clone Kevin?" Claire repeated. "Not possible."

Michele snorted. "Try again. Both Changeling and Chrysalis have working cloning techniques. But without the memory RNA, the other samples would be useless anyway."

Darien closed his eyes, not wanting to remember that fiasco of a plan. It would have worked if Kevin hadn't been such a selfish bastard. "Why Kevin? And why did you need the memory RNA?"

"Kevin was the designer for the quicksilver gland. We have some similar theoretical ideas, but need someone with his expertise to see if they are feasible. With the mRNA, we could have created an exact copy of Kevin, with his own memories. He could have been working five years after conception."  Michele answered in a soft tone of voice.

"Not possible. You cannot create an adult in so short a time," Claire countered.

"Who said anything about an adult?" Michele looked Claire in the eye, and Claire paled as she realized what that meant.

"No wonder you wanted the mRNA. No need to retrain, no need to try and duplicate life patterns, just inject it and wake him up once he's old enough to be coherent."  She shook her head. "And you say this works?"

Michele didn't answer her, but instead turned to Alex. "Have you figured out why Chrysalis uses the fertility clinics yet?"

"Because they're too damn lazy to take the time to do it themselves," Alex snapped out quickly.

Michele tipped her head slightly. "Maybe it's because the changes they've made to sustain their youth cause a high and consistent tendency towards miscarriage."  The words, once spoken, made an eerie sense. "Their genetic structure is sound, but they need to use surrogates to carry to term. They have a very interesting breeding program."

Claire shook her head in disbelief.

"We will need proof of that," Eberts said. One of the boxes of disks moved from the pile and slid to the end of the conference table.

"That is all the data I found on Chrysalis' breeding program. Changeling uses some similar techniques, and they exchange information on improvements. This information is dangerous. Either group would wipe you off the face of the planet to keep this secret. You've been warned."

"And you have no copies stashed away? I find that hard to believe," Hobbes said to her with a glare.

Michele tapped the side of her head. "I have a very good memory, Robert." She turned to the Official. "Anything else right now? I want to check on Cat."  When the Official shook his head she pushed herself to her feet, grabbed her backpack, and quietly left the room.

Once she was gone all eyes turned to focus on Darien, who sighed. "She didn't have to come in, you know."

"We know, Fawkes, we're just wondering where your loyalties lie. With us, or with her."  Hobbes was watching Darien very carefully.

"Hobbes, my loyalties lie the same place they always have -- with myself."  Darien pushed himself to his feet, intending to walk away from all of them before this turned into some sort of battle, before they began asking questions he did not yet have the answers to.

"Darien, I want you down in the Keep, now."  Claire was holding a set of disks and was giving him the look that said if she didn't get her way, it was going to turn out very badly for him.

"Do what she says, Fawkes," the Official added, making it an order from on high. "Let me know the results as soon as you have them, Doctor."

Claire nodded and directed Darien out the door. Once in the hallway, he could hear the voices start up, discussing the revelations  Michele had placed before them and probably damning him for being a fool. Claire's back was stiff before him and he wanted to say something, anything to lessen the anger she had towards him. "Claire, will you look at the information?"

They were in front of the Keep door, but instead of opening it she turned around to face him. "I have little choice, now do I?"  She waved at him. "She's convinced you and drugged you into some semblance of normality. It's my responsibility."

"Damn it, Claire, what the hell do you expect from me? She saved my life this morning..."

"Which would have been unnecessary if she hadn't dumped that... that child on you," Claire interjected.

"My child, Claire. You seem to like forgetting that part. My child. At this point, I'm not sure what to think. 'Chele is tired, ill, and doing her damnedest to rescue our son. I'm willing to grant her a little leeway."  Darien stepped forward, backing Claire into the door and forcing her to listen to him. "I've apologized a thousand times for what happened between us, but it was a mistake and you know it. You've spent most of the last year getting even in one subtle way or another. Don't you think it's time to move on?"

She gulped for air, his words having an impact, perhaps causing more pain than he wanted to inflict, but it had to be said. The situation was different now. Michele was back, with information that could help him, could save him finally, if only he could get Claire back on his side, willing to help him instead of simply maintaining the current status quo.

"I'll... Let me run some tests and look at the data first," she got out through the near-tears he could see in her eyes.

"That's all I ask."  Darien reached around her and unlocked the door so that they could enter. He headed straight to the chair and slipped off his jacket so she could take a blood sample. Once she had completed that task, he showed her the patch Michele had placed on his upper arm.

"You've got to be kidding me. That's how the drug is distributed?" Claire sneered. "There is no way the painkiller could be strong enough released in that form."

Shifting, Darien reached into his back pocket and pulled out another one and handed it to her. "'Chele says it's not a painkiller. It's... it's like the counteragent for the madness. Designed specifically to counter the effects of the flaw."  She took it from him with a look of disdain. "I'm sorry, Claire. It was not your fault. They changed everything, made you think their changes were your own. 'Chele said they even went back and altered the test results on the rats so you wouldn't notice. What you had come up with would have worked. I've been blaming you for screwing up, even though I never said anything, and I'm sorry."

Claire sighed. "I've been blaming myself. I thought I was so smart, and instead I made matters worse. It was like Gloria all over again. You had every right to blame me."  She turned away with her samples and headed to one of the lab benches. "I'll get started on this. Let me know if there are any changes in your condition."

Darien slid off the chair and tossed his jacket over his arm. Her voice stopped him as the door to the Keep slid open. "Be careful, Darien. There is no reason to believe a word she says, even if every piece of data checks out."

Darien dropped his head slightly. "I know. Thanks, Claire."

When he walked into the guarded room that had been set up for Cat, he found Michele sitting on the small bed the overnight nurse slept on when Darien had to work, with Cat laying down before her. There was a huge grin on the infant's face as several toys hovered in the air over her head. Michele's fingers were tightly gripped in the chubby fists of the infant. The items wobbled for a moment before settling back into a dancing pattern of movement.

"Darien, is everything okay?"

"I guess. Claire is going to check over the data. Run some tests. That's a good thing."  He stepped further into the room, walking softly until he was standing behind her. "What do you expect of me?"

"Nothing. I... I won't be staying once I have Kit back. I can't. We'll need to disappear."  She didn't even turn to look at him while she spoke.

"So you think you can just waltz back into my life, tell me I'm father, and then take off again?"  His voice was harsh, he couldn't help it. There was almost too much information to absorb. She was the enemy, yet not. Had betrayed them, played all of them, for Stark, yet had also been betrayed by her own people for Stark. She'd come to him for help, trusted him to help -- actually trusted him -- and then wanted to run away. "How do I know you're not just playing all of us again?"

"This is why."  She turned about, and suddenly all he could feel was sympathy for her, the urge, the need to protect her, wanted to do anything to help her, to make her safe. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone and he took several steps back in shock. "I'm a very strong projective empath. The entire time I was here before, I was projecting that at all of you, encouraging you to help me, to take me into the fold, to give me a place to feel safe. It was part of the secondary programming, so I wasn't aware of it till after, but it was very effective."

She lowered the floating toys. One hovered within reach of small hands, which let go of the tightly clutched fingers to grab at and then grasp the toy with astonishing coordination for one so young. After a few moments of happy cooing, a huge yawn issued from the tiny mouth and her eyes turned glassy as sleep invaded. Within moments, Cat was asleep.

Michele ran a hand across the sleeping infant's cheek and then up through the soft, down-like hair. "You saw everyone's reaction today; did it look like I was trying to play any of them? I could have them all bowing down at my feet if I wanted them to be there, but I don't. I deserve their anger,  but I will not apologize for what I did. It was my job and, at the time, I believed what we were doing would better the world in the end."

"The ends justify the means? Is that your vaunted logic?"  Darien hissed, not wanting to wake Cat.

"Damn it, Darien, have you forgotten everything that has happened in the last year, for the country, for the world?"  When he gave her a blank look she continued. "The attacks last year on New York and DC were just the tip of a very large iceberg. Changeling has been planning for that very scenario for years. I'll give you a small piece of information that is not in the intel I stole:  if not for the work of Changeling, the damage would have been far more widespread. In the weeks before the initial attack we... removed hundreds of collaborators. Almost every major city in the US was supposed to be hit that day. We saved thousands of lives and sacrificed many of our own people to do it. So yes, there are indeed times the ends justify the means.

"I've done some despicable things over the years. I've killed people to make sure they would never do the evil they were potentially capable of. I've ruined reputations to keep people from getting more power than we wanted them to have."  She shook her head, laughing. "Why do you think the Clinton administration was such a mess? How do you think files suddenly went missing, or reappeared in odd places? How information leaked to the press? We wanted the controversy, needed the controversy, because it focused attention away from what we were really doing."

Darien just looked stunned. "And there's a difference between Changeling and Chrysalis where exactly?"

She tipped her head to the side in acknowledgment of his insult. "The difference is who wins."

"And you're so sure it should be people like you?"  Darien sneered, wondering if anything he'd done while here at the Agency had any purpose at all, with both Changeling and Chrysalis out there trying to remake the world in their own image.

"Maybe? I'm not sure anymore. I've been involved with Changeling one way or another for over two decades. The reasons I left were personal, not dogmatic."  She got to her feet and lifted Cat, moving her to the crib to finish her nap. Once the side of the crib was locked in place, Michele collapsed.

"Crap."  Darien knelt down beside her as she lay on her side on the cool floor. Brushing the hair off her face, he found her noticeably warm to the touch. "Michele, you have to tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing," she slurred as she tried to pull away from him. "Just get me my bag."

"Nothing? Bullshit."  But he got to his feet and retrieved her bag for her. She was sitting up when he got back. She grabbed the bag from him and began to search through it, setting several pill bottles on the floor as she went. Then she went through them one by one. "'Chele..."

"Found it."  She opened the bottle in her hand and shook out two small pills, frowning at the few that remained within. She swallowed them down, grimacing at the taste they left on the back of her tongue. Closing her eyes for a long moment, several emotions flickered across her face. "Maybe if we'd met under different circumstances..."  She opened her eyes. "If wishes were fishes..."

"We'd all eat like kings. Yeah, I know that one. We have to deal with this, together, no matter how much it hurts. I don't want our son in Stark's hands any longer than necessary. Once we have him back, we can figure out what's next. But right now you are going to see Claire, pill collection and all."  He crouched down and began to put the bottles back in her bag then, ignoring her protests, lifted both her and the bag and carried them from the room.

She weighed next to nothing, couldn't have topped a hundred pounds, and was all skin and bones. She'd given up arguing with him rather quickly and leaned against him, her forehead warming the side of his neck as he rushed to the Keep. He got the door open with a moment's struggle and carried her in. "Claire, some help here."

Claire's look was dark for an instant, but she shook it off when she realized Michele was well and truly ill. "The exam chair."

It was an unnecessary command, as Darien was already on his way over there. He set Michele down and backed away, to stand near the glass divider and give Claire enough room to work.

As Claire was taking her blood pressure, Michele roused enough to push her away. "Don't bother, you can't help me."  She tried to sit up, but Claire pushed her back against the seat.

"And when did you get you're doctorate?" Claire snapped. "Sit, or I'll have you restrained."

Michele ground her teeth, but submitted to being examined. "Eighty-eight," she mumbled. Claire lifted her head. "I got my doctorate in eighty-eight."

Darien chuckled, and Claire shot a glare at him. "Michele, how long has this been going on?"

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. I'll be okay in a few hours, after the fever breaks."  She turned to look over at Darien. "Could you give us a minute, please?"

Darien looked from one woman to the other; Claire was carefully neutral, but Michele was pleading with just her eyes. "All right, but try not to kill each other."  He wasn't entirely sure about leaving the two of them alone. While he didn't really think Claire would hurt her, he also knew Claire was very angry and could only hope she would be able to set it aside for now. He waited outside the Keep for a while and then wandered down to check on Cat, who was happily splashing her bath water all over the nurse hired to watch her when she was here.

Darien spent some time playing with her once she was dressed, half expecting Claire to walk in any moment to get him, but, after almost two hours since he'd left the Keep, he began to get more than a little worried. He handed over Cat to the nurse with his thanks before heading back. He opened the door with a touch of fear in his heart, but relaxed when he saw Claire working at one of the computer stations. She switched off the monitor and turned around to look at him.

"Sorry, Darien. It took a bit longer than we thought."  She got to her feet and walked over to him, lowering her voice.  "She'll be okay in a couple hours, but she's a mess at the moment."

"What's wrong with her, Claire?"  Darien tried to edge forward, wanting to see Michele for himself, but Claire blocked his way.

"A virus. It runs in cycles and she peaks with an extremely high fever." Claire failed to keep herself completely impartial; there was actual concern in her eyes that he couldn't miss. And that scared him.

"Spill. What's the problem?"  Darien was not in the mood for the run-around. It had been one thing after another for the last week and it wasn't looking to end anytime soon.

"Claire, just let him by. I'm not contagious."  Michele sounded weak as hell. Claire stepped aside, allowing him to pass.

She was curled up on the exam chair, shivering under a blanket, an ice pack against her forehead and what looked like another on the back of her neck. She was flushed pink and sweating as well. "'Chele, you should have said something."  He reached out, but hesitated, afraid to touch her. A hand snaked out from beneath the dark green blanket to hold his in a weak grip. Her hand wasn't just warm, it was downright hot. Her eyes were shining with that glassy feverish light only a very high body temperature could cause. He looked at Claire who had walked over to the glass fronted fridge and retrieved a bottle of water which she brought to Michele.

"Hell Claire, she's burning up."

Claire placed the water in Michele's other hand and motioned for her to drink. "I know, an impressive one hundred and eight. Very impressive considering hitting one hundred and seven typically causes a coma and death."

Darien paled, part of him realizing that, even after everything, he didn't want to lose Michele. At least not until they had a chance to work things out, to see if  there was ever a chance for him, for them. "Can't you do anything?"

"Dare," Michele whispered, her voice was faint and uneven. "It won't hurt me. My system is very different. I can handle the higher body temp. I've peaked at a hundred ten with no ill effects."  She closed her eyes and shook harder, nearly dropping the water bottle. "It's just not very fun."

"You went through this with Cat? How?"  Darien was realizing her weeks since escaping, since beginning her search for Kit, had been for more harrowing than he'd ever imagined.

"Luck," she mumbled. "The pills can hold it off sometimes, and I usually hit this stage when she was asleep."  Her eyes opened and looked blankly about the room. "Claire, can you get me access to a computer, a laptop? There's more information you need."

"And give you access to Agency information? I think not," Claire replied with a dry laugh.

"Don't need Agency crap. Just a word processor and space, lots of space. Those disks were what I had time to download. The rest I wrote from memory. But there's more."  Her hold on Darien's hand weakened and she lost the grip on the water bottle entirely. Darien caught it before it spilled.

Something in Michele's tone must have convinced Claire. "All right, but later. You can't do anything right now. Rest. I'll make some arrangements."  She motioned Darien aside for a moment and, after reassuring Michele he'd be right back, he followed Claire to the other half of the Keep. "Can I assume you'll want to stay with her and... and the baby?"

Darien nodded, not having any idea what she was talking about.

"Like you'd do anything else," she snarled quietly. Taking a deep breath she composed herself. "If she loses consciousness, call me. I have to speak to the Official."  Claire began to move away, but stopped when he gripped her arm.

"What's going on?"

She shook her head. "I still have more tests to run, but she can't stay here and neither can the child. It's too dangerous. I'm going to convince the Official that, based on a preliminary review of the data she's brought, it is worth the trouble of helping her."  She freed her arm from his hold. "What's frightening is that it's true. Watch her, Darien."  Claire successfully escaped then, the Keep door sliding shut behind her.

"Dare?" Michele called softly.

He walked back to her side, dragging a stool with him to sit on. "I'm here. What do you need?"

"You'll keep them safe, won't you? Kit and Cat? You won't abandon them, will you?"  She was barely able to speak, unable to see the room about her based on the blank look in her eyes, and he couldn't comprehend why she was asking this. "Dare?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll keep them safe."  He said it just to ease the obvious worry and fear, that was emanating from her. Not that he didn't mean the words -- he fully planned on taking responsibility for their children -- but he planned on doing it with her at his side. They might be nothing to each other, but they would work it out, somehow, and raise them together.

"Thank you," she said, relaxing a bit, which made her shiver even harder.

"Rest, we'll talk later."  He ran a hand along her face and she gave him a weak smile before closing her eyes. He watched her for a while until her breathing had evened out and the shivering eased. Her seemingly absolute trust in him made him feel awkward and unsure of what he was going to do next. "Well... damn."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	4. Part 4

Part 4

Michele sat at the table in the small suite, laptop before her, fingers flying across the keys as she entered information from memory. Cat was in the portable crib beside her, watching the toys that once again danced over her head. Darien stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching them, his hair still damp from his shower, trying not to let the anger bubble back to the surface.

It had taken very little persuasion by Claire to convince the Official to consider providing at least minimal help. Eberts had been busily looking through the dozens of disks Michele had provided, stunning them with the amount and type of information contained within. Numerous projects, plans, names of Changeling members (both active and not), names of government and military officials they owned at least a piece of around the world. There were contact codes, safe house locations -- the amount of information was immense, and this was just the beginning. They had yet to look at the notebooks, all full of handwritten information that she had stored in her head.

Though he refused to commit to anything specific, the Official had agreed to hide her and give her some protection so she could plan her next move. He'd also agreed to guard Cat when the rescue attempt was made, on the condition Michele remove the back door from the Agency computer system. It took Michele less than fifteen minutes to not only block the back door, but tighten up the computer's security to keep Changeling out in the future. Eberts was once again impressed with her skill and she took the time to explain that this was part of what she'd been hired to do by Changeling. Between her learned skills and her unorthodox talents, she was able to manipulate computers and similar systems easily. Michele had been their 'data retrieval specialist.'

She was also a trained killer.

As Darien watched, she finished typing and saved the whatever it was. She'd been transferring data for a couple of hours now. With a sigh she turned to Cat and plucked one of the toys out of the air with her hand. "You silly, why you like this ugly duck I'll never know."  She set it on the infant's stomach and moved the others off to the side. "Well, you seem to be happy, amazingly enough."  She tipped her head to the side and smiled. "Yes, little kitten, I know he's there. Maybe. I'll ask him."

Darien had found the entire one-sided conversation very odd, but wasn't surprised when Michele turned to look at him.

"Cat wants to know if you'll play with her for a bit. Something about 'the attack of the demented duck'."  Michele shook her head. "The impressions don't translate very well."

He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck, not sure he wanted to understand what he'd just heard. "She's a telepath?"

"No, or rather, not yet. Not beyond what most infants are, though being a twin does add to the effect. I'm reading her."  Michele tapped Cat on the nose and then walked to stand before Darien. He had yet to pull on his shirt and she lifted the chain from where it lay low on his chest. "Mine?"

"Yeah, yours."  He removed it from her grasp and put on his shirt. "At least I had something to remember you by."  His voice was so cold that he surprised even himself. When she started to laugh quietly, he had to resist the urge to hit her.

"And I didn't?"  She waved her hand in the direction of Cat, and Darien groaned in total frustration. "Shit, Darien. If I didn't give a damn, would I be going through all this trouble? If I were the cold, callous bitch you seem to think I am, would I be here? No. I would have shrugged my shoulders, let Changeling do whatever the hell they wanted with the kids, and gone on to the next mission."  Her hand came up to hover inches away from him, wanting to touch, but afraid he'd revile her. In truth, he wasn't sure he wouldn't. "Darien, I've literally thrown away the only life I've known for you. Could you give me a chance? Please? I've shown you how I felt, still feel, what else do you want from me?"

"Michele, I don't know. I've been hanging onto the memory of a woman for the last year who bears very little resemblance to the one standing before me. Vague feelings and hopes have been all that kept me going for long months."  He leaned against the door frame, slouching down as he tried to put the confusing thoughts and feelings into some sort of order and explain them to her. "I'll take responsibility for the kids and I'll help all I can, but I don't know if I can get past this... this change in you. In some ways it's everything I hate, everything I've been fighting against since coming to the Agency."  His hand came up to rest against her face. "And in some ways you're still the same. Your strength, your courage, your stubbornness. You come back, and I find the woman you were slowly trying to be. It's..."  He shook his head, sure he was doing this all wrong. "I just don't know what to believe anymore."

She seemed to contemplate his words, quietly observing him for several long minutes while the tension between them only increased. Coming to a decision, she took his hand, which had been almost unconsciously playing with her hair, and kissed the palm, causing him to draw in a sharp, sudden breath. The light touch of her lips on his hand was a shock. "I care about you, Darien. Enough to not want to cause you any more pain. You have every right to be angry, but don't dare try and deny that part of you wants me, cares about me, maybe even loves me. You've been hurt, turned to others to ease your pain, but you never forgot me."  She released his hand and stepped back. "Go play with Cat. I'm going to take a shower."

Darien found himself unable to move, unable to stop her. It took an irritated squall from Cat to get him to focus on reality. When he got to her side, she got all excited, waving her arms and kicking her legs.

"'Attack of the demented duck,' huh?"  He picked up the butt-ugly toy and convinced it to emit long, annoying, and painful-sounding squeaks as he slowly marched it up her leg and torso towards her face. "You have to be my kid, you're completely mad."  She squealed as the duck got near her face and grabbed at it with a look of sheer joy in her eyes. Darien found himself laughing as much at her as with her.

It was some time before Darien heard movement in the other room. In the interim, Cat had played herself into a giggle fit and then straight into her late afternoon nap. In some ways he was thankful she was still so young. She was cute enough to catch his attention and sweet enough to keep it. She still spent most of her time sleeping, and wasn't too demanding or mobile yet, which had made it easier on him considering he had no idea what he was doing. The weird thing was that he was finding he liked having her around, like playing 'attack of the demented duck' with her. Just knowing that Michele would be leaving with her if -- when -- they got Kit back bothered him. He was beginning to realize he didn't want that to happen, but wasn't sure how to prevent it.

He made sure Cat was content and then walked into the bedroom. Michele was stretching, in the slow graceful movements that he remembered from before. It was even the same routine, for the most part, with only some minor adjustments due to space constraints. She was looking much better than she had earlier. Claire had come up with... something, and injected Michele with it, breaking the still-increasing fever. She'd been nearing one hundred and ten when she finally agreed to try the concoction. She still didn't look right, didn't look entirely healthy, but better.

Darien sat in the chair under the sole window in the room and rubbed his face in his hands. He wasn't really tired so much as worn. Even with the worst of the side effects corrected, he still had things to be upset about, things that kept him off balance, things he needed to deal with before he could continue. Michele finished stretching and flopped back on the bed with a sigh.

Darien moved over to sit next to her and looked down, his right hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "'Chele..."

She opened her eyes to look at him. "What do you need, Dare?"  She carefully controlled her voice, knowing how angry he'd been just a short time ago.

"What happened that night? Was it all a set-up? Did you force me to care, even beyond just wanting to help you?"  He wanted his memory back. He wanted to know that what he'd held onto for the last year hadn't been some dream. Oh, he knew she cared, but even she'd admitted there had been secondary programming that she'd enacted without realizing. He was afraid that he was part of that and her... attachment to him had been manufactured. "Did you just use me because you couldn't get what you wanted from Kevin?"

"Why does it matter, Darien? It's over and done with."  She hadn't moved, just lay there watching him.

"It matters 'cause I've spent the last year believing we had something... that I.... that you.... Damn it, 'Chele."  The frustration was unavoidable. Part of him wanted to shake her until she understood how important this was to him.

She sat up then, took his hand into one of her own and traced random figures on the back of it with the other. "I do understand, I just didn't want to burden you with the memories."

"Let me decide if it's a burden, please?"  He pleaded with her, somehow knowing she was breaking down, giving in, at least on this.

"All right. Lie down."  She rubbed the side of her nose and waited for him to do as she asked.

"Lie down? Why? You gonna try and take advantage of me?"  She laughed softly and shifted onto her knees. Leaning in, she kissed him lightly, much to his surprise, and despite his residual anger, despite her being so very different, despite everything, he found himself responding. Their fingers twined together as his other hand came up to stroke the back of her neck, causing her to sigh against his lips.

He deepened the kiss and her mouth opened beneath his in response, making him groan and lean back on the bed bringing her with him. His hand slid down her back, easily feeling her ribs even through the shirt she wore. They spent long minutes doing nothing more than getting know the feel of one another again, falling into each other again, learning she was very ticklish again. She pulled away, panting in reaction to his unintentional tickling.

"Well, which do you want? Me, or the past?"  She was running her hand across his shoulders and chest, a light touch that teased and made him relax at the same time. Just having her here -- here with him. It was enough for now.

"Start with the past, then I might be able to better deal with the present." She nodded and then kissed him again.

"What's the last thing you remember?"  Her voice had gone oddly serious, and he found himself trying to remember exactly where his memory cut off.

"Last clear thing I remember is you telling me the movie was over."  She closed her eyes and tipped her head slightly. He brought one hand up to rest against her cheek. "'Chele?"

"Ready?" she asked, confusing him.

"Ready for what?"

"Dare, I'm going to show you what happened, from my perspective for the most part, but some of your... emotions are mixed in. Is that okay? It'll be faster than just telling you."  Based on the look on her face, she was suddenly realizing that he might not want her in his head.

"Will it hurt?" That was the only thing he could think of.

"I'll be gentle, but you might end up with a mild headache. This is a bit different from just sharing emotions, or talking to you."  She sat up and looked down at him. "I'm just used to doing things this way, sorry."

"Michele, it's okay. I...."  He took a deep breath and made himself finish the sentence. "I trust you."  He found himself believing his own words; he did trust her, and it surprised him.

"Close your eyes and relax. Like you're practicing your meditation. Clear your mind."  Closing his eyes with only a touch of concern, he felt her free hand come to rest along his face. *_You're safe_.*  The words rolled through him, easing the last of his discomfort. He went into his relaxation exercise, clearing his mind of any built-up crud. Then, suddenly, he was back in his apartment, watching himself....

It was the oddest experience of his life. He'd never realized how tall he really was until now, looking up at himself through 'Chele's eyes. He listened to their conversation as she admitted that she wanted to stay the night, felt what she felt, including the hurt at his harsh commentary. When she lifted her hand to touch his face, he somehow knew what was coming and his mind was filled with feelings, the emotions and hints of thoughts of both of them. When he watched himself back away to lean against the door and moved with Michele back into the room, the connection was still there, had always been there he now knew, just stronger with the more intimate contact that had occurred.

Until this moment, he hadn't realized she had heightened senses as well; she'd never mentioned it. It was intoxicating in some ways. She could hear his heart pounding from across the room, smell the pheromones that signaled desire -- hell, downright lust -- and when he finally helped her remove her shirt and kissed her, she could smell and taste the quicksilver so very near to flowing. Her sense of touch was so very heightened that the slightest movement of his fingers sent fiery bursts of longing through her that she somehow tamed, controlled, and used. Simply allowing herself to fall into step with him and the erotic dance they were performing.

When the quicksilver flowed across them, it was both shocking and unbelievably intimate. How could he have known what a subtle caress it could be? What she was feeling, how she was reacting, had become so intertwined with him that there was little need for words.

His irritation at being unable to stop the quicksilver cooled them for a moment, but her quiet words and confidence in him aided in his gaining some sort of control, a control he'd never bothered with before. The annoying quicksilver effect irritated him, but he'd never wanted to correct it, to change the situation, until now.

There was a sudden flood of new information, like a door had been flung wide allowing in the summer heat and sunshine, and he found himself both looking down at Michele and up at himself as well. Feeling him/her kiss him. Feeling the cold stream of quicksilver down his back and the heat of his/her lips at the hollow of his throat. The sudden rush of need, of want, of love. With a sudden twist in his mind, he found himself seeing from his perspective alone, but he could still feel what she was feeling. That intimate mental caress that was beyond anything he'd experienced before was still there. It drove both of them to places he hadn't thought possible and, even after the moment was over, left him on a high plateau he'd never thought he'd get to see in his lifetime.

The rest of the evening played out in his mind:  their passion, their need revealing itself over and over again, until they finally dozed off curled about each other like a pair of puppies. His chin resting atop her head, their combined scent a soothing elixir, her warm body a relaxing presence that he melted into, her breathing a slow timed pattern that he found himself matching as he slipped into slumber.

He found himself waking to the sound of her voice calling his name softly and the feel of her lips on his shoulder, neck, teeth gently biting his ear lobe.

"'Chele? Is something wrong?"

She actually looked embarrassed. "I'm starved, and your cupboards are pretty damn bare."

"Hungry?"  Darien glanced over at the clock on his night stand which read a little after one AM. He'd slept for about an hour. "How about pizza? Luigi's is still open."

She nodded. "Pizza'd be great."  Her stomach growled in agreement and Darien chuckled softly. "Sorry, I skipped dinner. I had other things on my mind."

"Oh really?"  Darien pushed himself into a sitting position with a grin. "Such as?"

Michele followed suit, the sheet falling down to her waist, revealing the clothes she wasn't wearing. "Such as how to convince you I wasn't a little girl and get you into this bed."  Her lips found his collarbone and made their slow way across to his shoulder, where she sank her teeth in just hard enough to leave faint marks.

Darien groaned and brought up one hand to caress her breast, teasing the nipple with his palm. "Pizza," he muttered. "You said something about pizza."

She lifted her head to meet his eyes, her own glazed over with desire. "Oh, yeah. Perhaps you should make that call."  She licked her lips, her tongue darting out for an instant, before biting her lower lip to keep a moan trapped inside as he rolled her nipple between his forefinger and thumb, squeezing gently. "Ah, D... Dare."

He leaned in to find her ear. "Yes? Something you want?"  Her breathing was rushed now, his touch a distraction that made her forget how to speak, and he loved it. He'd forgotten what a pleasure it was to be able to drive someone speechless with a touch and a few well-chosen words. Forgotten what a pleasure it was to have it done to him. "Besides pizza, that is."

Her panting turned to laughter. "Tease. Pizza first. Need sustenance to fuel the body for... other activities."  She rubbed her face along the side of his, ignoring the scratchiness of the hairs there, the sandpapery feel of his unshaven face, reveling in just being able to touch him. "Think the 'Fish'll get pissed if we call in satiated tomorrow?"

That got Darien laughing. He gave her a quick kiss and rolled off the bed. He headed over to the counter where his phone was and hit the speed dial for Luigi's. "Large?" he asked her, covering the mouthpiece with one hand.

"Hell yes, I'm ravenous," Michele answered with a grin.

As Darien ordered the large pizza with everything, he watched as Michele lifted her hands over her head and arched back, stretching. He could hear the soft pops from her neck and back and enjoyed the view quite a bit, though she was still underweight, he noted. Her ribs were prominent enough that he could see the skin and muscle flowing over the bones as she moved. He hung up the phone with a distracted "Thanks," as the guy on the other end told him it would be about twenty minutes.

'Chele shook her head in amusement when she saw that he was more than a little aroused again. "Let me guess, I could sneeze about now and you'd react."

Darien decided she was being silly and not trying to embarrass him. "You gonna deny the same goes for you?"

"Deny? Oh no. Admit the truth? Ain't gonna do that either."  She was doing the poker face, but the smile that had invaded her eyes gave it away.

Darien moved over to the bed and sat next to her. He caressed her face, his thumb tracing the outline of her lips as she watched him, meeting his eyes with a candor that was surprising. Tonight she was holding nothing back from him. "We've plenty of time."

"Hmmm, less than twenty minutes is your definition of 'plenty of time'?" It was a joke, but her voice had only a hint of humor. "Darien, I...."

He stopped her, suddenly knowing what she was going to say. He could feel what she was trying to put into words, could, through his light touch upon her, feel everything going on inside her including the undertone of fear. Fear of how strongly she felt, fear that it would all be torn away, fear that she was going to lose herself to him even as she was trying to find who she was. "Shhh, we've plenty of time, 'Chele," he repeated. The light kiss he gave her, the bare brushing of lips, was electric and he forced himself to stop with the one kiss. "Clothes. The pizza guys expect a bigger tip if I answer the door naked."  He slid across the bed and over to his bureau. Rummaging, he came up with a pair of faded blue pajama bottoms and T-shirt for himself. Spying the pajama top she'd worn the last time she was here, he pulled it out as well and tossed it to her.

Catching it she smiled and watched as he dressed. "I could answer the door nekkid. I doubt he'd demand any tip at all, or payment for that matter."  But she pulled the top on and began to button it before Darien could make any protest.

He walked around the bed and ran his fingers through her hair. "I'd rather not share."  That came out far more possessive than he'd intended. "If... if that's okay with you."

"Very okay," she answered quietly.

"Mmmm, good."  He found himself being drawn back down into her. Falling into that state of desire, of passion, where rational thought was unnecessary and touch, action/ reaction, and feelings ruled. Where instinct and need took command. He pulled himself back. "Thirsty. Want something to drink?"

It was obvious she'd felt the same thing, had been drawn along with him, and found it just as difficult to pull herself back to that level of rationality that was necessary for spoken communication. "Yeah, drink would be good."

Darien stepped away, feeling her eyes upon him as he turned his back on her and walked into the kitchen to search the fridge for liquid refreshment. He heard her exhale into the room and smiled; it was a good bet she was just as ready for another round of lovemaking as he was. She was a surprisingly wanton little thing, not shy in the least, and more than willing to do, or be done to. He picked up a couple cold bottles of beer and forced himself to calm down before he found himself sliding that shirt of his up over her head and himself into her.

He focused on the bottles in his hands, hoping they would have that cold shower effect, and turned his mind to other things. Bobby was going to be upset about this, as was Claire. The thought of talking to either of them was enough to put a damper on his arousal and gave him enough control to be able to face Michele without pouncing on her for another round of play -- he hoped.

There was a sound at his door and he set the beers down on his counter. "Wow, that was fast. Where the hell is my wallet?"

"That is not the pizza guy," Michele said at a harsh whisper.

Darien turned to see her off the bed and standing by the back of his sofa. He headed towards her, but had only made it as far as the pool table when the door was smashed in and black-covered figures burst into the room wearing thermals and carrying laser-sighted weapons.

The self-preservation instinct ruled and he quicksilvered, even though he knew it was a futile act. A feathered dart flew by him, headed for Michele, but was diverted into the wall. One of the men flew backwards into the bookcase, knocking it to the floor and spilling books everywhere, and ended up under the door that hung by only the security chain at this point, canting it at an awkward angle. Darien headed for the bat he kept near his bed and, as he lifted it, swung at the guy he somehow knew was right behind him. It caught him on the shoulder, knocking the gun from his hand and him to the floor. Murphy's Law kicked in then; the dart gun went off as it landed butt first and the tranq found a home in his chest.

"Damn it. We don't want him dead. Just get the girl."

Darien heard Michele scream in rage and the shattering of glass as a blurry, dark form flung itself into the door of his fridge. The room was spinning in a dizzying manner and a wave of heat washed over him. Color returned, as his control of the quicksilver fled with the effects of drug overtaking his senses. He felt the bat slip from his grasp and bent down to pick it up, only to find the floor rushing up to meet him. It hurt, but he couldn't seem to do anything about it. His body was numb, his mind just barely holding onto consciousness. "'Chele..."  He didn't know if he spoke aloud, or only thought her name. Not that it mattered. Darkness swooped in on soft-feathered wings and dragged him away.

Darien was suddenly seeing things from Michele's perspective again. He felt her terror, her anger, as the men burst into the room. Men who seemed familiar to her, men she knew, men Corvan had sent to reclaim her. Felt her release the power within her, felt the effort and concentration required to shove the one into the bookcase and smash another with the pool table, trapping him between it and the closet door. Watched while he proceeded to shred the felt in an attempt to free himself before passing out. He could feel the tendrils of energy as she deflected tranq darts away from herself and from him as he went after the bat. He saw out of the corner of his/her eyes as he took on the man moving up behind him, realizing only then that she had been the reason he'd known the man was there. That eerie connection allowed her to relay information to him without having to speak in any form.

When she saw him hit with the tranq and heard the words from the leader, she went wild. Everything she was became focused on the sole goal of protecting him. The rage with which she flung the one man headfirst into the fridge and another who attempted to close with her into the wall next to his bureau. The body slid down the wall, his skull crushed. Darien felt her terror as she watched him fall to the floor and fade into unconsciousness with her name in his mind, on his lips.

The sting of the tranq dart that hit her in the arm, fired by the man Darien had hit with the bat. He was now crouched behind the bed, having retrieved and reloaded the weapon after hitting Darien accidentally with it. She yanked the dart out and flung it back at him, connecting solidly with his temple and knocking him to the floor. The next team came through the door then, getting her with two tranqs outright and making her scramble back over the sofa, knocking it over in the process, to get away from them. By then it was too late -- she had more than enough of the drug in her system to affect her. She tried to drag the sofa over to hide behind but was only able to move it slightly, shredding the fabric instead, her control going, her concentration being shattered by the powerful sedative coursing through her body. She backed into the wall and felt her knees fold, her legs no longer willing to support her. Reaching for anything to keep her upright, her hands closed around the curtains, but instead of holding her up, they pulled free from the wall to settle down upon her and the remains of the sofa. Hiding her from those who had come for her.

Her last sight was of eyes, the face hidden by a black mask, and the gloved hand that had lifted the curtain out of the way to reveal her. Her last thought was of regret, that she had not said how she felt about Darien when she'd had the chance. Then darkness swept her away.

Darien opened his eyes to see Michele looking down at him with concern on her face. "Are you okay? You were out a bit longer than I expected. And... and you quicksilvered a couple of times."

He felt drained. "Shit, that was vivid."  He rolled and curled himself about her, his head buried against her stomach. The memory was still replaying over and over again in his mind. He'd regained his own memories of that night along with hers, and she was right -- with the last year still an obstruction between them, it was a burden. But it was a burden he was willing to bear. His faith, his belief, as vague as it had sometimes seemed to be, was justified. It had not been his imagination, not been some weird escape, or an excuse to avoid emotional contact with others; he had lost a part of himself that day, and, even with her here now, he wasn't sure if he'd ever find it again.

He shook in her hold, her arms wrapping about him, cradling his head in her arms, her hair falling about her face as she leaned over him. Her tears fell onto his cheek, chilling him as the quicksilver mixed in, nearly turning them to ice as they fell the short distance from her to him. "I'm sorry, Dare," she whispered. "I should have realized..."

He lifted his head, shifting so that he cupped her face with both hands. "Don't be. I wanted -- needed -- to know what happened that night. To know that what I felt, and what I thought you felt, was real. Thank you."  He kissed her cheeks, tasting the combined salt and sweetness of her tears, causing her to shudder and draw in a shaky breath. Her hands came up to encircle his neck, her need to comfort and be comforted leaking from her. Darien was more than willing to oblige.

They held that tableau for a long timeless moment, drawing what they needed from each other, reconnecting to each other, finding in each other what had gone missing for so many months. Darien pulled away first. "'Chele, once we have Kit back, why don't we leave, take off and start somewhere on our own?"

"How Darien? I've been on the run for weeks. It's not easy, especially with kids, more so with infants. Most of my resources have been cut off. I was backed into a corner by the time I tracked down where Kit was."  She let the exhaustion seep in to her words, let him feel how the past weeks had worn her down, gave him a small taste of how hard it had been.

He wondered why she was trying so hard to discourage him. "'Chele, think. I'm a thief, we can both turn invisible -- hell, you have an entire repertoire of talents that would be useful. You can't tell me you're worried about breaking a few laws?"  She shook her head. "We'll hit a few casinos, steal a few million, head south. Maybe down to Cabo San Lucas or Acapulco. Set up our own lab."  He was liking the idea more and more. What reason did he have to be loyal to the Agency? With the money they could steal, they could do just about anything, go just about anywhere they wanted.

"And what will you do when the counteragent runs out and there's no more? Or the patches. What then? Go quicksilver mad while holding Cat? Try and commit suicide when the depression crashes back in?" she countered, using a two very feasible potential scenarios.

"We steal all we can first. Get some made as needed till we're set up."  He took her hands in his. "We can do this, 'Chele."

"Darien, you barely know me. You still see me as the innocent you met a year ago. You may very well grow to hate the person I really am." Michele was almost pleading now, making it plain she wanted him to drop this idea.

He tipped his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "I told you last year that I was not the best person in the world. I'm still not. And neither are you. I think we'd make a hell of a team, and there are some responsibilities I take seriously. They are 'our' children, and I'll do whatever's necessary to see they are safe. Just like I promised you." He could see that his words had sunk in, that she was now aware how very serious he was about this. That he would throw away the little he had at the Agency for a chance at a normal life. With her, with their children. "You already said you were going to have to go into hiding. We could do it together."

"I'll think about it. I can't make a decision until after Kit's safe." She gave him a small smile. "Okay?"

He thought about it. So many things could change, could go wrong in the next couple of days. Somehow he knew they had to move soon, not so much for Kit's sake -- Stark wasn't likely to harm him -- as for Michele's. "Okay. Just so long as you really think about it."  He glanced at his watch, noting that it was well after dinnertime. "I'm going to order some food for us. Anything in particular?"

"Ummm, just some soup for me. Vegetable or chicken if they have it." She had trouble meeting his eyes for an instant, but finally did, her look carefully controlled.

"You can talk to me, if you need to."

She shook her head. "Nothing to say, really. Not right now, anyway. I'm just a little tired."

Considering what had happened earlier, he could believe it. "Why don't you catch a nap then. I can handle Cat when she wakes up. She needs her mom healthy."  He eased her back onto the pillows and dragged up the blanket folded over the end of the bed to cover her. "Rest."  She sighed and closed her eyes, relaxing into the overstuffed pillows. Darien lay the back of one hand against her cheek, finding her still slightly warm to the touch. As if that mystery fever from earlier was trying to come back, even with the medication Claire had provided.

When her breathing slowed and evened out, signaling she was deep asleep, he still watched her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	5. Part 5

Part 5

The heat was nearly oppressive as Hobbes turned off the van's engine and climbed past Darien into the back. Outside the window there was nothing but scrub and desert for miles around. The heat haze distorted the landscape in the distance. "Hobbes, are you sure this is the right place?"

"Yeah. Well, close enough. We have to walk a bit so they don't spot the van. That's what the kid said, anyway."  Hobbes stuck his head back into the front and handed Darien a pair of binoculars. "Here, we're gonna need them."

Darien grunted in response and took them before opening the passenger door and slipping out into the afternoon sunshine. Within seconds, he realized that hiking about in his leather jacket today would be a bad idea and shed it, tossing it back on the seat and shutting the door. "Which way?"

Hobbes slid open the side door and hopped onto the dusty surface that was the ground. During the winter, this area actually supported some forms of plant life, but it had all long since been burned away by the hot and dry conditions. He slammed the door shut and motioned with his hand. "Thataway."

'Thataway' was a gentle rise upon which there was little to see, just more sand and scrub. Darien followed his partner, keeping his eyes out for the girls. Michele had actually been the one to discover the location of this Chrysalis facility and Alex, after a bit of glaring at the shorter woman, agreed to come out ahead of time and do some preliminary scouting with her. About halfway up the hillside, Darien began to become concerned that maybe Alex had done something besides scouting. In an unexpected emotional outburst, she had cornered Darien this morning and gone off on him about Michele. He'd never gotten more than two words in before she'd cut him off again. In the end, she'd left him standing in the hallway, a bit stunned and wondering just what the hell had happened. Near as he was able to discern, Alex felt like she'd lost the last little connection to... to life, now that he was back with Michele.

He'd tried to say that he wasn't back with Michele, not really, but Alex refused to listen. She'd been a good part of the reason he'd even survived the past several months, and he'd never had any intention of just walking away from her. Even if they never slept together again, he was still her friend and would do anything for her, just as he would still do for Bobby, and -- though it had taken Alex's words to make him realize it -- for Claire as well. Now that his emotional state wasn't being manipulated, now that he was far more like the self he'd been a year ago and had some sort of closure in the loss of Michele, he could once again see those around him as the friends he had always known them to be, but had been denying for long months. He found it hard to believe Monroe would be jealous; the little they meant to each other was not something he'd have been jealous over if she'd found someone else.

And maybe that was the problem. He had found himself able to move past the hurt, able to look beyond the next hour, the next day. To see the possible future before him and be able to look towards it with some sort of hope. To, maybe, want to make some plans, plans involving his children and their mother. All Alex had had for the last half a year was Darien and her work. She thought she was losing him and he had no idea how to help her.

They were nearly to the crest of the hill and there was still no sign of the girls, which made him more than a little uneasy. "Hobbes..."

*_Left, Dare. We're 'round the curve of the hill. There's a cut through that they're using for a road. Don't top the hill; it's guarded_.* Darien somehow managed to not jump out of his skin when she suddenly spoke in his head, though he did stop dead, much to Hobbes' annoyance.

"Fawkes, move your ass," Hobbes snapped in a soft voice.

"They're off to the left," Darien said, moving in the direction Michele had indicated. When he noticed Hobbes was still stopped, he paused. "'Chele told me."

It took Hobbes a second to figure out what Darien meant. He shuddered slightly, but he moved alongside Darien as they began walking again. "Isn't that... weird? Having her in your head?"

"At least I know where the voices in my head are coming from," Darien said without thinking, and regretted the comment immediately. He may have been feeling a bit better overall, but the crappy attitude he'd been copping for the last year was still around. "Man, I didn't mean that."

Hobbes eyed him warily, anger and hurt in his eyes. "You haven't exactly been Mr. Rational either, my friend."

"Hobbes..."  Darien tried, but Hobbes shook his head.

"Later."  They rounded the slight curve in the hillside and found the cut Michele had described. Behind some rocks and scrub that were actually halfway decent cover they spotted Michele and Alex. "I think we need to rescue your girlfriend about now."  Hobbes paused, surveying the scene. "Uh, which one do you want?"

Darien groaned. Alex was straddling Michele, her gun aimed at the smaller woman's face. "Monroe, what the hell are you doing?"

She twitched, but did not change her focus. "Attempting to interrogate her, Fawkes. She's after something."

Michele just laughed, not even trying to fight her and obviously not afraid of her.

"Not doing too good a job, are you?" Hobbes commented as he and Darien closed the distance between themselves and the women.

"Piss-poor job," Michele agreed with a smile.

Darien saw the look that crawled across Alex's features. He'd seen the same look a couple other times, when they'd had run-ins with Chrysalis agents. Michele was going to find herself in a world of hurt or worse in mere seconds if she wasn't careful. Alex shifted one hand to Michele's throat and growled something inarticulate. That's when Michele moved.

Darien was never quite sure what happened, but Alex's gun was suddenly flung away to land at his feet and Michele was now atop Alex, but she wasn't using her weight to hold Alex down. She was up on her knees, looking down at the woman beneath her. Alex struggled, screeching in pure anger for several minutes before finally relaxing, sucking in air with harsh pants. "Get off me, you bitch!"

Michele laughed for a moment, then her look turned dangerous, deadly. "You have no idea what an interrogation is, my dear," she purred. She leaned forward and trailed her fingers down the side of Alex's face, in a caress that was strangely erotic. Michele's face was mere inches from Alex's, who was now staring up as if enraptured. Darien now understood what Michele had meant when she'd said she could have everyone bowing down at her feet.

"With no effort at all, I could strip your mind bare, expose your deepest, darkest secrets to the world."  Alex had begun to shake beneath Michele, though whether in fear or something else -- something far more intimate, given the sexual overtones in Michele's voice -- he didn't know. Michele pulled her hand away and got back up on her knees, her voice turning very cool almost as if bored with the whole thing. "But you know what? I don't care. You have nothing I want. Nothing those I used to work for want. 'Cause if you did, I'd have stripped you bare the last time I was here. And you never would have even known it." Michele got to her feet and stepped away, releasing Alex from her hold. "You're pitiful. Jealous over the fact he cares about me, about our children. Try and remember exactly who he's been with for the last year, who helped him through some of the worst times in his life, and who tried to help you through yours."  Michele shook her head in disgust. "Try and act like the professional you supposedly are."  Then she turned her back on Alex and walked towards Darien and Hobbes.

Darien watched as Alex got to her feet and charged Michele. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but Hobbes got to it first. "Look out, kid!"

Michele didn't even flinch. Instead, just as Monroe dove for her, Michele ducked low, allowing Alex to fly right over her to land in the dirt. With a snarl that was almost animal, Michele went after her and set one sneaker clad foot on Alex's throat. "If you even try to mess up my chance to get my son back, I will snap your neck. I'm allowing you a little leeway because you lost your son and because Darien cares about you. You have no comprehension of what you're dealing with. Do not get in my way."  Michele stepped away and headed back to the brush-covered rocks where the fight had begun.

Alex lay on the ground unmoving for a long moment, then her hands balled into fists that she raised and slammed into the ground. Darien crouched down beside her, not quite sure what to say or do. "Alex..."

She shifted to a sitting position and got to her feet, giving Darien a shove that set him back on his ass, then stalked off in the direction of the van. "Get the hell away from me, Fawkes."

Darien looked torn, unsure which woman he should follow. "Hobbes?"

"Don't look at me, Fawkes. You have to make the choice."  Hobbes offered his hand and helped Darien to his feet.

After brushing off the dust, Darien glanced in the direction Alex had gone and sighed. "My son is more important, Bobby."

Hobbes nodded. "At least you're smart enough to realize that. I'll go check on Monroe. We still have scouting to do."  He looked up at Darien, who couldn't help but feel at least a little guilty over the situation.  "Go on, Fawkes."  Hobbes waved at him and then turned to go back to the van.

Darien watched him for a couple minutes and then gathered up his courage and walked over to where Michele was crouched behind a rock, looking out over the facility below them. The rise they had climbed dipped back down on the other side, like a giant ripple. The building didn't appear to be very large, only a couple of stories tall, but he was betting most of the place was underground. Looking again, he realized it was actually a series of buildings, with one continuous roof covering both buildings and walkways between. There was even a fairly large courtyard in the center of it all. If it wasn't for the fact the place looked more like a school or a hospital, done in a dull off-white, the whole scene would have really bothered him. The overall impression reminded him eerily of the lab where Kev had put the gland in his head, though he knew that place was well south of here.

He crouched next to Michele and set a hand on her back.

"I'm sorry," they said in unison.

Michele shook her head. "You have no reason to be. I let her get to me and lost my temper. I suggested that she help."  She rubbed her face with one hand. "This was a mistake. Maybe you should leave."

"'Chele," he ran his knuckles along her cheek and was surprised to encounter cold moisture. Grasping her chin lightly he turned her head to get a better look at her and was surprised that she had really been crying. "It was not a mistake and I am not going to leave. I'm not entirely sure what Alex's problem is, but it is not your fault."

She moved his hand away and chuckled. "Of course it is. I'm here and she now has to deal with me in person. It's easy to compete with a ghost." Darien looked at her blankly, not understanding what she meant. "Darien, you became her focus, her last hold on... on life, and now she's finding out that she hasn't been the same for you."

Darien closed his eyes and slumped down, sitting on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chest. "Shit," he muttered. Alex had been... nice to be with. A warm body that had dealt with as much loss, grief, and guilt that he had, but she had never become a reason for living. That had been 'Chele. He wore the ID chip not because he mourned her loss, but because he still hoped to find her again. Until now he'd thought he and Alex had basically shared a mutual misery that included a little sex now and again. Together they'd supported each other through some really bad shit, but that was all.

"Dare, don't blame yourself. You each got what you wanted -- what you needed -- from the relationship, and I can't thank her enough for that, but she has to face the reality of me being here."  Michele ran a hand through his hair. "She's hurt, but she's also a big girl."

"Ummm, I'm not interrupting anything am I?"  Hobbes asked from a few feet behind them.

Michele turned to look at him. "Is Alex all right? I didn't want to hurt her, but she wasn't going to get the hint otherwise."

Hobbes moved over to them and hunkered down as well. "A few bruises, nothing major. She's gonna keep an eye on the van."  He cleared his throat, making it plain that there was more to it than that, but also that he was not going to go into it now.

"Look, you guys don't have to do this. If you're willing to keep Cat safe, I can manage."  Michele turned to face Hobbes. "This doesn't have anything to do with the Agency."

"Kid...never mind. Let's just check the place out, okay?"  Hobbes peeked through the brush to get a good look at the place. It looked dead. Nothing moving, not even trash or tumbleweeds rolling around out there. The heat haze was enough to cause some distortion, making the place look like a ghost town.

"'Chele, how do you know Kit's in there?" Darien asked as he looked over the place as well. Hobbes tapped him on the shoulder and Darien handed him the binoculars he'd been carrying all this time.

Michele tipped her head to the side and closed her eyes. "I can feel him."  The look on her face was a mixture of relief and heartache. She opened her eyes to look into his. "He's okay. He doesn't like the place very much and... he misses his mom."

"'Chele, how do you do that?" Darien was still not fully able to comprehend what she was capable of, but the distance seemed to great for her to be able to 'know' anything about Kit.

"Genetics, Dare. He's part of me, so I can always find him. It's the same with Cat, though distance does make a difference. Let me show you."  She turned over one of his hands and placed hers on it so they were palm to palm. Then she did something and, much like the evening before, he could suddenly feel other things, know other things. These thoughts and emotions, though, were simple, almost primitive in comparison. What surprised him most was the recognition, that the mind he was in contact with through Michele recognized him. Another mind was brought into the mix, though the connection was far weaker, the new mind radiated such joy at the connection to the first that he knew it was Kit and Cat reveling in the slight contact bringing them together.

It was too much. Darien jerked his hand away and found himself staring up at the pale blue sky, trying to find himself, trying to sort out the impressions in his mind that weren't his.

"Fawkes, buddy, you okay?" Hobbes' face came into view, looking worried.

"Uh, maybe?"  With Hobbes' help, he sat up slowly and looked over at Michele.

"Sorry," she said quietly. "The connection was a bit stronger than I intended, but now you understand."  She smiled almost shyly. "Kit was very happy to finally meet you."

"Nice. Happy for you two," Hobbes said in an irritated tone. "Now that the family reunion is over, can we get to the scouting? What is this place, anyway?"

"This is their main breeding facility. Where they conduct their little genetic adjustments, pick and choose whose contributions will create the best possible improvements, before shipping off the frozen embryos for implantation," Michele answered, her focus swiftly changing to deal with the necessities of the moment. "I know it looks empty, but it's not. There are several hundred employees that live here. The number of transients is far smaller, just a few dozen."

Hobbes was standing, binoculars to his eyes, looking over the place again. "Kid, there's nothing there. There's no sign anyone has been here in...."

Michele cut him off. "Look closer, Robert. The windows are fakes -- glass over painted images. The security is subtle, but there. The courtyard hides the underground garage. An entire section lowers down and the heli-pad is around the far side."

Now that she'd told him what to look for, Hobbes easily found everything she'd mentioned and more. She was right -- it was subtle, but there. Motion and sound sensors. Probably thermal cameras as well. "Laser grids?"  Hobbes asked, not able to see those with the equipment he had.

"Yes. The tops of the hills are wired."  She pointed up. "You can see them overhead."

"Maybe you can," Hobbes grumbled. "Fawkes...."

Darien nodded and quicksilvered his eyes. Tipping his head up, he could see the distinctive red grid pattern of laser security. "Yeah, I see 'em," he confirmed to Hobbes. Looking about, he saw lots of laser grids. "Across the far side of the cut-through and all over the place in the compound."  He allowed the quicksilver to flake away and turned to Michele. "Why not through here? It's the obvious way in."

"They have cameras aimed through here, both standard and thermal, but with the heat distortion they're easy to trick."  Michele answered. "I only got closer than this once, trying to assess my chances of getting in alone. I can probably do it, but getting out is the bitch. The room Kit is kept in is very heavily guarded by both human and electronic security."

"How did you figure this out?" Hobbes asked, crouching back down.

"I got close enough to partially access their main computer."  When Hobbes' eyes narrowed, she added, "I can put my... self, my mind into electronics and follow them. I have most of the security layout in my head. Some minimal data on routines and schedules. That kind of stuff. I was on a time limit, working between the computers' scheduled self-diagnostics. They have lots of power in there."

Hobbes shook his head. "Kid... Too bad you weren't on our side."

Michele shrugged. "I am what I am, Bobby. Feel free to walk away." She said this with no animosity, no anger. "The same goes for Darien." She turned to him. "You are under no obligation to help me."

"True. But I'm here for Kit first. You second," Darien answered after a moment's thought. Michele tipped her head in acknowledgment of his honesty.

"'Chele, is there some way you can put the intel you got into a computer program we have?"  The wheels in Hobbes' mind were turning.

"Easy to do," Michele said with a nod. "Direct data transfer is simple."

"Good. I'd say we have enough for now. Let's head back."  Hobbes led the way back through the cut and around the curve of the hill, where they stopped.

"My jeep is off that way," Michele said with a vague gesture. "Meet back at the Agency?"

Hobbes nodded slowly, thinking about something. "Fawkes, you go with her. I'll make sure Alex gets back safe and sound."

Darien stepped forward and, after glancing over his shoulder at Michele -- who got the hint and turned to wander off several steps -- said in a soft voice, "I kind of wanted to talk to Alex while I had the chance."

Hobbes shook his head. "No you don't, Fawkes. When I got to the van, she was looking for my back-up gun."

Darien sighed. "Damn it." He rubbed his forehead with one hand, hoping Alex hadn't been planning to use that gun on herself. "She... Was she..."

"Fawkes, she was gonna go after Michele, though doing herself was probably part of the plan as well. Maybe even taking you out, just for spite."  Hobbes closed his eyes for a second. "I tranqed her, Fawkes, and you don't want to be anywhere near her when she wakes up. I'll get her to Claire; maybe she can help."

"Ah hell, Bobby. I never meant to hurt her," Darien said, with real pain in his voice.

"I know, partner. What the two of you had was never based on anything but pain, though. You're the lucky one. You managed to find some hope."  Hobbes stepped away. "I'll deal with Monroe. You have your own problems to deal with."

Darien turned back to join Michele, who at least pretended she hadn't overheard every single word they'd spoken. "Where to?"

"This way."  Michele lead the way to the beat-up Jeep Wrangler she'd gotten from somewhere. She leaned against the passenger door and looked up at him. "I'm sorry about Alex. I knew coming here would cause problems, but I hadn't thought things would be this bad."  She got this look of humor in her eyes. "Did you sleep with Bobby, too?"

Darien groaned. "'Chele, it's not funny."

"No, I don't suppose it is. I..."  She shook her head. "I've wreaked enough havoc in your life. The sooner I'm gone, the better."

"Michele, don't say that. It was my actions that screwed everything up. I made the choices and I'll deal with the consequences."  He captured one of her hands in his, liking the way her far smaller hand fit into his, the way her body fit to his as he stepped closer, pressing her back into the side of the vehicle. The way she sighed as he brushed his lips across hers.

Kissing 'Chele was totally different from kissing Alex, or Claire for that matter. This kiss had nothing to do with despair, or with trying to ease a deep-seated pain with physical contact, or using a few moments of desperate pleasure to find that rare moment of joy. This kiss had everything to do with hope, light, and love. It was freeing. There was no attempt to ease pain -- the pain was simply gone. No attempt to hide from despair -- this was all joy. This kiss was about all the hope he'd been holding dear for the last year being confirmed, being given substance, being given form in the shape of the lovely woman now wrapped in his arms.

"Dare, don't do this," she whispered, her voice shaking slightly. "We have no idea what's coming next."

"All the more reason to grab at it while we can," he argued, meeting her eyes. Those glorious silver eyes of hers, that he found himself caught in, falling into, rendered speechless by, much like the first time he'd seen them. "I can't help it, 'Chele. There's just something about you.... I'll take whatever I can get."

She must have seen something in his eyes, or maybe in his heart, because she gave in, though with some reluctance. "All right. We'll work it out. I've no idea how, but we'll work it out."  Her fingers played with the stray curls near his temple, a small smile crossing her lips. "But right now we need to go. Cat's waiting."

Darien cleared his throat. "Mmm, yeah. We'll get him, 'Chele. We'll bring Kit home."

"Damn straight," she agreed, and slipped away. Moments later they were on their way back to the city.

The drive back was mostly quiet. It wasn't that they didn't have things to discuss, mountains of issues to deal with; it was more that they both wanted a few minutes of contented peace with each other. A calm in the center of the storm their lives had become. When she slowed and pulled over a couple blocks from the Harding Building, Darien was more than a little confused. It wasn't likely she'd forgotten where to go, was it?

"'Chele, it's a couple more blocks."

She had closed her eyes. "Darien, would the Official go back on his word? Would he sell me out?"

He had to think about it before he allowed the gut reaction 'no' to escape past his lips. The Official was always out for number one -- the Agency -- and if he thought he could get away with it, he might very well turn her in to those hunting her, especially if he could somehow figure out how to keep the information she'd provided as well. "I... I'm not sure. With the right motivation... yeah, he would. Why?"

"'Cause Corvan's there," Michele told him at a frightened whisper. "And he knows Cat is there."

"Crap," Darien muttered, falling back on his old standby for expressing feelings that were far too complicated to express. "How? It's not like we walked you in the front door."  Very true. There was a little-used tunnel system that ran under this section of the city. Not sewers precisely, but it had access to various buildings' basements and to plumbing, phone, and power junctions. Occasionally they were used by the various companies to fix problems, but not much else. The Official had unburied the entrance to the Harding Building from behind several old file cabinets to allow Michele to get in and out without being seen. They had been gaining entrance to the tunnels from a parking garage a couple blocks past the building.

She started the Jeep and took a left at the next street, heading who knew where. "'Chele, we gotta head back. I need to find out what's going on."

She shook her head. "I have to get away. He'll know I'm here the same way I knew he was there."

"How? It's not like he's got your abilities...."  Darien trailed off at the look of combined pain and fear on her face. It took him less than thirty seconds to figure out the connection. His mom had always told him he was smart. "Corvan is your brother. He's your twin, Michael."

Michele nodded, unable to speak.

"Damn it. All right. Head over to Balboa."  She did as he asked, seemingly glad to have a direction to head in. "Can you... uh, block him or something?"

"To a degree, but the closer I get to him, the more likely he is to notice me. His abilities work a little differently than mine, but because we're twins, we have a built-in connection."  Her voice shook only a little as she spoke, and he reached over to set a hand over hers.

"Cat'll be fine. If no one else, Eberts will protect her," Darien said, trying to reassure himself as much as her. "Pull over anywhere."

Michele did so, parking in the first open space she found. Darien pulled out his cell phone and dialed. "I'm calling Hobbes to see what's what."  At her look of concern he added, "I trust him, 'Chele."

"Yeah, you do," she agreed. She leaned back into the seat and rubbed her eyes. "And I trust you."

He gave her shoulder a squeeze as Hobbes finally answered his phone. "Hey, Hobbesy. What's shaking in the home office?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	6. Part 6

Part 6

Walking in the front door of the Agency may have seemed to be one of the less brilliant things he'd done in his lifetime, considering both inside and out were members of the same agency that had tried to kill him the night before last, but it had to be done. He was met by Eberts almost immediately.

"Darien, you need to get out of here. This Corvan is trying to force the Official's hand and make him turn Katherine over to him."  Eberts had been trying to stop him the entire walk, but Darien just kept moving.

Just down the hall from the office, Darien paused. "And is he going to cave? Is he going to bargain away Cat to save his own pathetic ass?"  Less than a week ago the Official had proclaimed he'd get rid of the child in a heartbeat to avoid problems, and Darien had no idea if the Fat Man had changed his mind on the subject.

Eberts shook his head. "I don't know. This group, Changeling, is very dangerous. If Corvan can prove that he is the rightful... owner" -- the word came out as if it tasted bad to Eberts -- "the Official may have no choice."

"I'm her father," Darien snarled in a low voice.

"Yes, but technically she's part of an experiment, and Corvan can claim that takes precedence," Eberts explained with obvious discomfort.

Black anger roared through Darien. No matter how much truth there was to the words, there was no way in hell he'd allow any of his children to spend their lives as lab rats. He was about to push past Eberts, knock him to the floor if necessary, when a group of five men came through the double doors towards them.

The man in front he recognized from a year ago when, through seemingly sheer coincidence, Michele had entered their lives. This was the man she'd called Corvan, who Darien now knew to be her brother. He used this 'Corvan' persona to hide behind, the same way the Official rarely used what they thought to be his real name -- Charlie Borden. She admitted to having had a working name of her own, but refused to tell him what it was. After all, she'd pointed out, she would never be using it again. 

Corvan paused next to Darien and, after a glance at Eberts that made him skitter away in fear, smiled and removed the dark glasses he wore. "Well, Mr. Fawkes, I'll give you credit for bravery; walking in while I'm here."

Darien stared at the man's eyes for a long moment. One was silver, just like 'Chele's, and the other was half blue and half green. An odd combination, and it was understandable that he wore dark glasses. Those eyes were not ones that would easily be forgotten once they had made contact with your own. Darien, however, had dealt with 'Chele and found himself able to resist the draw of those eyes. "I do work here, you know."

Corvan nodded slightly and then did ... something, causing the four goons to move away with swift precision, leaving the two of them alone. "I'm almost tempted to allow the two of you to remain together. Your genes are apparently well suited to Michele's. She caught quick and bred twins. A good beginning. However, her little rebellion has made this unfeasible."  He tipped his head slightly. "Perhaps I should make you an offer to join us. Then the two of you could happily breed us some more talented children. You would have just about anything you wanted."

Darien failed to keep his emotions in check or his face neutral; the anger, the beginnings of hate, found their way to the surface, showing in his eyes and stance, the way the muscles of his jaw clenched, how his fingers twitched, wanting to ball into fists. The man before him knew it, saw all of it.

"I guess not. You have a choice, Mr. Fawkes. Tell me where 'Chele is and turn Cat over to me, or I'll destroy everyone here."

"How?"  Darien rumbled out, his anger making his voice low and rough. "How could you give your nephew to those bastards?"

Corvan smiled. "So she told you; I'm surprised. How? Simple: she has the known breeding potential, unlike myself." At Darien's unavoidable look of comprehension, Corvan nodded. "There were some unfortunate side effects with the Phase II for me. 'Chele is the only possible source of more talented children. Without duplicating the entire QSX Project, that is."

"She'd rather die than go back after what you did to Kit," Darien said in a cold voice. Though Michele hadn't said anything of the sort to him, he still knew it to be true.

"Which will happen anyway if she doesn't come back."  Corvan took a step closer to Darien, looking him right in the eye. The man was only a couple inches shorter than Darien, with a slightly heavier build. If it wasn't for the fact that he 'knew' this man was Michele's twin, he would have never suspected they were related. "All you have to do is stay out of the way, out of our business. Those children will be nothing but trouble for you, an inconvenience in the long run. Seriously, what do you think you'll do when their abilities manifest? Do you think you can teach them how to handle hundreds of minds suddenly in their own? What happens the first time one of them blows up a television just by walking past it, or throws a bully into a wall, with a thought, out of self-defense?"  When he moved this time, Darien was forced back until he collided with the wall. "'Chele and I had no one to help us. We had to help ourselves. You cannot image how ... close two people can become when you are literally sharing your thoughts, emotions, dreams.... fantasies."

Darien shook his head at what the man -- her brother -- was implying.

"You have no idea at the level of intimacy that is achieved by two telepaths. She was mine. In all things."  The man's voice rolled over Darien, somehow making him know everything that was being implied but not directly said. "Have you forgotten how sweet she is? How willing? How talented?"  Darien knew he was giving away too much, but couldn't hide the feelings of confusion, anger, and disgust running through him. "Who better to teach her than someone who knew everything she wanted, everything she needed, everything she was capable of? Someone who could feel -- know -- exactly what her nubile young body craved? At least until she met you. Somehow, you managed to do what I could not."  Corvan backed away from Darien, allowing him to release the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "I'll give you till this time tomorrow to say your good-byes to Katherine. Seeing as you are her father."  At some unseen, unheard signal the goons reappeared and Corvan slid the glasses back over his eyes. As he turned his back on Darien and walked away, he spoke again. "Any chance she persuaded you into breeding another set of twins for me?"

Darien found himself unable to say anything. He was stunned, horrified, sickened beyond measure.

"No? Oh, well. Hope this... news didn't cool your ardor too much."  Corvan broke out into laughter as he walked through the doors at the end of the hall and out of sight.

Darien just stood there, staring about sightlessly for long minutes before sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, trying to absorb the information and failing utterly, when Eberts poked his head around the corner to check if the coast was clear. He vanished and returned a moment later with Hobbes.

"Fawkes, I thought we had a plan?"  Hobbes said as he approached. It wasn't until he was standing directly in front of  Darien that he realized something was wrong.

It seemed to take an insurmountable effort to lift his head, but Darien managed it, meeting the concerned eyes of his partner. "Fawkes, did the SOB hurt you? Eberts, get the Keep."

For all that Hobbes was his friend, his partner, there was no way he could talk to him about this. He could barely wrap his own mind about it, found the potentially frightening reality of what he'd been told mind-numbing. "No Keep. Cat. Is Cat okay?"

"Yes, Darien. Cat is just fine, for now," Eberts answered with concern in his voice. He and Hobbes glanced at each other, but neither knew what had been done to Darien.

Darien forced himself to his feet. "Keep her that way. I... I'll  be back for her."  He attempted to move away, to leave the building and go somewhere, do something to deal with the roiling confusion in his mind and heart.

"Fawkes, the plan. Have you forgotten the plan?"  Hobbes stepped in front of Darien to stop him. "They'll follow you back to Michele. I got everything set up."

It took Darien a long moment to change the tight circle of thoughts running through his mind. Cat and Kit had to come first, and to protect them, to save Kit, they needed Michele. "Right. The plan."  He laughed a bit harshly, mentally cursing himself for being a fool. For allowing himself to be sucked back into her little game, to let himself be used by her again. Like she hadn't gotten what she wanted from him the first time, now she was trying to do it all over again. Drawing him in with a pitiful tale that he'd willingly believed.

He pulled himself together, a plan of his own coming to his mind.

"Fawkes?"  Hobbes must have sensed the change of mood, but Darien wasn't about to explain it.

Darien turned to Eberts. "I'm trusting you."

Eberts nodded. "I'll do my best."

His attention swung back to Hobbes. "Let's do this."

It was astonishingly simple, their plan. Even with the comments that Corvan had made about giving Darien the time to say good-bye to Cat, it wasn't very likely they'd turn down the opportunity to follow Darien back to Michele. She was obviously good enough to have hidden from them with both Cat and a tracker implanted in her arm. Without the tracker, the only connection they had to Michele was Darien. It was inevitable that he'd be followed, or so Hobbes had hoped.

"Well, Fawkes, they're right behind us. Looks like at least three teams."  He glanced over at Darien. "They want her back bad, at a guess."

Darien didn't comment aloud, just a slight grunt of agreement so that Hobbes wouldn't start repeating himself until Darien had acknowledged the fact that he'd spoken.

After several minutes of uneasy silence and odd turns to try and shake their pursuers without actually losing them, Hobbes cleared his throat. "It was Monroe that called them. She figured if 'Chele and Cat were gone, you'd swing right back to her."

Darien's hands balled into fists. Right now he could care less about Michele, but Cat... Cat deserved better. How could Alex do this to a child -- his child -- after losing her own? He'd known that she was broken inside and done what he could to help, to hold her together, but obviously it wasn't enough, could never be enough. "Damn," he muttered.

"Claire had to sedate her once the tranq wore off. She's arranging for a psych consult. At a guess, Michele showing up and presenting you the perfect happy family on a platter was a bit too much after everything else."

Darien snorted. "Perfect? Happy? Where? My son is owned by Stark. My daughter is about to be kidnapped by her uncle, and Michele..." He had to stop as the anger returned, making damn near see everything through a haze of red. "Michele is not the person we thought she was," he finished coldly.

"Fawkes, I don't know what that guy Corvan did to you, but ..."  Hobbes began, only to stop at the near-hysterical laughter that came from his partner.

"It wasn't me he did," Darien commented mysteriously through the laughter. "That I could have dealt with."  He sat up straighter in the seat as he recognized where they were. "Let the fun begin."

Hobbes searched for a parking spot on this block and found one just being vacated by some surfer dude's muscle truck -- a pair of surfboards in the bed rack and everything. "Remember to watch the red. I have the blue stuff, but we don't want any innocents getting bumped around 'cause you got a case of the red-eye."

Darien opened the passenger door and slid out. "Oh, no. Definitely wouldn't want any 'innocents' to get hurt."  He didn't even glance at the tattoo to see how much time he had. It didn't matter. He swung the door shut and walked off in the direction of where the car he'd be using was parked. He caught sight of one of the follower's cars as it cruised past him at about half the posted speed limit. Almost as if they wanted him to know they were there. Not that he really cared at this point. Once he'd had his turn, they could have her. He'd fight to keep Cat, would fight to get Kit back, but Michele.... Right now he wanted nothing to do with her. In fact, he was tempted to hand her over himself once they'd had a little 'chat.'

Darien walked into one of the shops along the street at random and began to peruse the place, looking for the route to the rear of the store. It was a good bet there was a back door to the alleyway that ran behind this row of shops. It wasn't difficult to find, a doorway with long strings of wooden beads hanging down instead of a door. He made his way around the displays, looking for a reasonably quiet and hidden spot to perform his little trick without being seen.

"Fawkes, where the hell are you?"  Hobbes all but shouted in his ear.

Darien pulled off the headset and dropped it to the floor, even as he let the quicksilver flow. "Sorry, Bobby-boy. Change of plans."  He made his way through the shop, drawing the confused attention of the owner as he passed through the hanging beads, making them rattle and sway. He moved through the shelves of merchandise in rear before finding the back door. It was only dead-bolted against outside entry; it took no effort for him to unlock it and be outside in the late afternoon sunshine.

From there he made his way over another street, by walking down a tiny alley between two stores, where he let the quicksilver harden and flake away to hail a cab that would take him to the meeting place. The drive there gave him more than enough time to go over what Corvan -- what her brother -- had said to him. Gave him more than enough time to have both his anger and disgust cranked up to a level where he might very well not need the madness to do some real damage. Only Arnaud had ever made him this angry, this spiteful, this eager to do serious harm to someone before. Even bringing up the images of what she had shown him last night, the scenes of her playing with Cat, of her ill and burning up with fever, did nothing to lessen the anger; in fact, it made it burn all that much brighter.

He paid the driver and waited till the man had driven away before glancing down at his wrist. Only one segment remained green. Perfect, three minutes or less till his reality would be turned inside-out. He should remember to thank her for changing the make-up of the gland. No more preliminary headaches as the toxins built up in his system, no more warning seizures that would drive him to his knees with blinding pain, no more blood-shot eyes warning everyone his evil twin was about to come out to play. Just one burst of pain that would make him black out for a few seconds and then... then when he reopened his eyes he would be of a whole new frame of mind. Today he was looking forward to it.

She was right where she was supposed to be, sitting on the hood of the Jeep, looking out over the city. It was almost ironic that the view included the former location of Cerberus Corporation, one of Chrysalis' front companies. Darien could still remember that day clearly. Standing in Stark's office and allowing himself to be persuaded to join, to agreeing to kill Allianora -- even if he did suspect it was nothing more than a test. Things had changed so much. His views of what was real, what was possible, of what atrocities could be committed in the name of the 'greater good' had been altered dramatically. There were times he found it all just too much to deal with.

Settling his mind -- no point in tipping her off to what was coming -- he put a smile on his face and approached her.

She turned while he was still more than ten steps away. "Dare, thank god." Then her brow wrinkled in confusion. "Where's Cat? What happened?"

Darien stepped up to her, holding out his hand which she took and slid off the Jeep to stand before him. "Shhh. Everything is fine, just a slight change in plans. We need to talk."  Tugging on her hand, he began to walk away from the vehicle and towards the nearby woods. This section of the park had several trails through the more wooded areas, leading downhill to the small lake below. Tossing an arm around her shoulders she leaned against him as they slowly made their way out of sight of any potential watchers. "So 'Chele, exactly what kind of relationship did you have with... Corvan?"

She stiffened. "He was my brother, my partner on occasion. Why?"  She froze then and pulled out of his hold, which had begun to tighten at her far-too-vague-for-his-liking answer. "You spoke to him. I can smell him on you. Fool."

"Fool is right," he snarled and let the quicksilver flow, flooding his system the last little bit necessary to drive him over the edge. "Your pitiful tale of running for your life was a good one, I must admit."  Even as she attempted to back away from his position, he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, sliding up the shirt sleeve to reveal the bandage there. Claire had been kind enough to check her arm and patch her up after Darien had torn open the still-healing, self-inflicted wound the other night. He tore off the bandage. "This was such a nice touch. Went perfectly with the 'I was locked in a cage' story. How long 'Chele? How many years did you sleep with him?"  He spat out the last word in total disgust.

She laughed, a harsh, pain-filled sound. "Way to go, Mikey. Same old bastard self."  She yanked her arm from Darien's hold. She surprised him by meeting his eyes, even though she should not have been able to know where he was. Even as he moved, circling around her like a predator toying with its prey, she tracked him. "Dare, he got to you. He's done this; made you so angry, so disgusted, so hurt. It's what he does. He's perfected the art of mind games."

Darien paused, considering her words, but his chance to think was short as the gland finally did its job and, with a sharp excruciating burst of pain, sent him into darkness. When he opened his eyes some unmeasured amount of time later, it was to see Michele's face above his own. His head was cradled in her lap, her fingers running gently through his hair, her voice a soft, soothing tone that eased the last of the lingering pain. With a swift movement, his hand came up to grasp her by the throat. That must have been when she noticed his eyes, realized that the Darien she knew, had so well played, was gone, leaving a borderline psychopath in his place.

"Thanks for your help. I'm feeling much better now."  He sat up without releasing her. Shifting slowly, he drew Michele to her feet as he stood. "You know, you never mentioned the dangers of me going quicksilver mad with you. Wonder why that was? Did you think your pretty smile and oh-so-tempting body would be enough to stop me?"  He licked his lips and drew her closer. Her hands were wrapped about his wrist, though they were doing nothing more than resting there, just making contact. She wasn't struggling and she didn't look afraid.

"No," she ground out, finding it difficult to speak past his hold. "Not stop you. Join you, perhaps, but not stop you."

Her comment annoyed him and he lashed out with his other hand, hitting her across the face, driving her to the ground as he released his grip on her throat.

She got her feet and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. "What's the matter, Dare, afraid of the competition?" she purred, her look almost feral. Her entire body posture tugged at him, taunted him, making the anger drain away, and a dawning desire to be drawn to the surface.

"Competition? Oh no, there is no competition. You are mine," he growled, his voice low, rough with need. Then he went after her. It turned into a flat-out chase through the trees. By some unspoken agreement, the quicksilver failed to flow, her extra talents never came into play to block or stop him. The hunt changed as the minutes wore on, though never once with the goal of escape, the mood became charged as she would let him get near before finding yet another way to stay just out of his reach. At one point they both stopped, nearly doubled over, drawing in huge gulps of air just feet from each other.

The look in her eyes spoke volumes to him. Challenging him to prove he was worthy of backing up that claim, of putting his mark on her, of making her his. Any thoughts of hurting her or turning her over to Corvan had fled during the chase, the hunt. He would have her, he decided then and there, and shot forward to grasp her before she'd fully recovered. She succeeded in maneuvering past him and danced away with a sly laugh even as he spun about and went for her again.

The flat out run had been forgotten, now it was a teasing game of keep away through the trees, her always one short step out of his reach. She seemed to find the whole thing amusing, she kept throwing heated glances over her shoulder, leading him on, driving him to try harder and harder to catch her.

When he finally did catch her, part of him realized that it was only because she had allowed him to, because she had decided to end one game and begin the next, because she had decided he was indeed worthy of her. The rest of him didn't care. He managed to get close enough to grab and handful of hair and pulled, throwing her off balance. Somehow the two of them ended up tangled together and rolled down the slight incline until they came to a rest at the bottom with her on top.

Michele lifted herself up slightly to look down at him, her eyes questioning him as to his next move. Would it be pain? Perhaps a small -- or not so small -- beating to get even for what he saw as a betrayal, or perhaps he'd make that claim upon her, make her his own the way his obvious arousal wanted him to.

He came to a decision and rolled so that she lay beneath him, both her hands held tightly in one fist over her head. He didn't say a word; there was nothing to say. To him, her allowing him to catch her after a teasing, torturous, tormenting chase, told him all he needed to know. He proceeded to remove the clothing that interfered with his goal and took her there on the grass and leaf-covered hillside. His maddened body seeking some kind of release only she seemed to be able to give him. He lost himself in the sensation, enjoying the almost animalistic way they came together, the oddly thrilling flow of quicksilver across their united flesh, the sounds of orgasmic pleasure that escaped from her as he drove them towards that mutually desired goal.

As he came he bit her, hard, on the tight rope of muscle where neck met shoulder. Tasted the blood in his mouth even as she arched beneath him and cried out in response. Not in pain, but release. He'd almost forgotten how their emotions became entwined when they were together like this. He could feel her surge of inordinate pleasure at his act, her surge of joy and relief that they were performing this little dance again. As she relaxed beneath him, her hands, which he didn't remember releasing, drew him closer, caressing the muscles of his back and neck. He shuddered as some part of him reacted to the violence of what he had done, but she whispered quiet words he could not quite understand but which were still effective in easing his sudden return of conscience.

He removed his teeth from her flesh and lightly licked at the wound, tasting the saltiness of her blood, the sweet tang of quicksilver mixed in, making her moan in reaction. He felt drained, tired from the chase and its inevitable climax. Michele moved her hands to his head and pulled at his hair so that he lifted his head and found himself looking down at her. She kissed him, her tongue running across his lips tasting her blood upon them, making him groan and unconsciously thrust into her again in reaction even though he'd not fully recovered from their first act.

Her tongue had made its way into his mouth, teasing him with a delicate touch that was electrifying. *_Forgive me_,* rolled through his mind. Before he could lift his head away, look at her, ask her what she meant, he felt the sharp sting of a tranq dart hitting him in his lower back causing him to try and jerk away. She held him tight, a calming, soothing feeling running through his mind from hers, countering the anger that tried to build. With a moan that was part anger at her traitorous behavior and part thankfulness at her comforting hold upon him, he slipped into the darkness.

As he slowly returned to consciousness, he heard voices, familiar voices arguing softly nearby. His head ached in that annoying 'I've been tranqed yet again' way that had become all too common in the last eight months or so. Bringing one hand up to his head, he ran a hand through his hair and encountered... leaves? Opening his eyes, he looked at the evidence in his hand and tried to remember what the hell he'd done this time. "What the hell?" he muttered, trying to convince his memory to function within the realm of normality.

Claire came around the glass divider then, a look of concern on her face. "How are you feeling, Darien?"

"Like I've been tranqed."  His memory was slowly returning, and the dull ache in the crook of his elbow gave him another piece to the puzzle. "Shit. 'Chele, Cat, are they okay? I didn't... do anything to them did I?"

Hobbes appeared then, holding Cat in his arms. "Given your tendency towards Swiss cheese for brains post-nutso lately, I figured you'd ask."  He handed Darien the baby and was surprised at his reluctance to take her.

Darien shifted to sit almost cross-legged on the chair with Cat in his arms, realizing sadly that Michele had a point about the risks if they were to run off. Maybe.... maybe until he had this thing licked, it would be better if she and the twins were on their own. Maybe they could work out a way for him to visit without risking exposure of their hiding place. He looked at Hobbes. "Where's 'Chele? They... Corvan didn't get her, did he?"

Hobbes shook his head. "Nah, you shook 'em but good. Shook me pretty good, too. By the time I caught up with you, you already had a major case of red-eye, my friend. Tranqing you was the only real option."

There was something in Bobby's voice that got his attention, that scared him. "What did I do, Bobby? Did I...."  He swallowed hard as he remembered his unreasoning anger, his near hatred of her, his urge, his wanton need to get even for her betrayal, though he couldn't yet remember the cause. "Did I hurt her?"  It wasn't what he wanted to ask, but it was as close as his fears would let him come.

"Nah, she's okay. In fact, she's how I found you. Girl's got one hell of a range with that mind of hers."  Hobbes stretched out a hand and tickled Cat, who giggled in glee. "A few bruises, nothing she couldn't handle. She said your memory, including what Corvan did to you, would return in a little while. She also said she's sorry about everything."  Hobbes shook his head. "I hope you know what she's talking about, 'cause I've no fricking idea."

Darien sighed, not too sure himself. Things were still vague from the time he'd walked into the Agency till he'd woken up on the exam chair here in the Keep. "Where is she? I have the oddest feeling we need to talk."

"Don't know."  At Darien's frown, he added, "She helped me get you to the van and then took off. She quicksilvered the whole damn Jeep, so I couldn't even guess which direction she headed in."

Words of Corvan's returned then, the not-so-subtle hints of the more than familial relationship between the two of them and of the subtle impingement on Darien's own mind by the man. 'Chele must have done something to him to allow this memory, this intrusion, this expert manipulation of how he should think, feel, react to be recalled by him. The truth, the knowledge that they had had a relationship beyond friends, beyond brother and sister, did bother him, but not to the degree that he wanted to hurt her. He simply wanted an explanation, before he made any judgments. What with prison and all, he'd seen a lot. Hell he'd ... done a lot and he was willing to bet there were reasons, real reasons behind the... the relationship.

"Hobbes, how long has it been?"

"Little over an hour. Just a light tranq. Why?"  Hobbes moved around the chair as Cat's nurse appeared. Darien, after a last look at the tiny person in his arms, handed her over.

"She's going after Kit. On her own."  He knew this. If Corvan was here, then he would have to know she'd try and rescue Kit. She wouldn't have come all this way, fought so hard to not try. "Damn it, what the hell did I do?"

"It's not important right now," Claire said, resting a hand on his forearm. "I have some... news for you."

"Good or bad?" Darien asked, not liking the signals she was sending with her posture.

"That would depend. When we went ahead with the gene therapy treatment, we assumed that the change in the madness symptoms was a direct side effect of that, and I'd been trying to find a way to fix it on that basis."  She stepped away, turning her back to him before continuing. "That was an error. The altered therapy treatment didn't affect the madness sequence at all."

Darien was numb. This week was just getting better and better. "Then what, Keeper? What changed?"

"You did."  When it was obvious that answer wouldn't be nearly enough, she continued. "I went back and checked my lab records; for several months before the therapy, your pre-madness cycles had been shortening. It's possible the faulty gene therapy triggered the final result early, but it was going to happen anyway."  She came back over to him. "It's a form of tolerance to the counteragent. While it still cleans out your system, it's now also blocking the effects of the toxins until you reach saturation point, and when you do..."  She snapped her fingers.

"Instant id," Darien said, and she nodded in agreement. "How long before it's not instant red-eye, but silver-eye? How long before I go permanently sociopathic?"

Claire shook her head. "Never, I hope. Michele has given me everything I need and more to reverse the false gene therapy, and possibly even the madness. I can't promise that I'll ever be able to remove the gland, but in six months, if testing goes well, you may never need a shot of counteragent again."

There was no expression his face, but hope, real hope burned through him. He turned to Hobbes. "Bobby?"

"Yeah, partner. Things are looking up."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	7. Part 7

Part 7

It was nearly sunset when they finally caught up with her. She'd hidden the Jeep damn well, in amongst some scrub with a desert-toned camouflage net tossed over it. Hobbes grunted in obvious appreciation of her skill, parked the van next to it, and then set about following the barely visible trail she'd left behind. They were well south of the cut-through they had used to spy on the lab the earlier in the day. In fact, where they now were, the hill had petered out into a fairly gentle rise that the van could have easily driven over had they wanted, or needed, to do so.

Hobbes had grabbed a pair of binoculars and a two-way radio from the van and watched the area cautiously. As they neared the top of the hill, he glanced over his shoulder at Darien who had been following along quietly. "Fawkes, check for lasers, would ya?"

"Huh? Oh, sure."  Darien quicksilvered his eyes and glanced around as they slowly topped the hill. "Nothing nearby."  He looked towards the lab well off to their left. "Looks like some closer to the building."  The quicksilver flaked away and he looked about the swiftly darkening area. "Where is she?"

"Right behind you," a soft voice said out of the air a few feet to his right. "Down, please. They do have cameras that can see you."

Hobbes spun about to glare at the empty spot where they assumed she was standing. "Kid, we need to talk."

"No. You need to leave."  She had moved, and Darien turned to reorient on her voice.

After years of dealing with Darien, Hobbes had gotten pretty good about finding someone invisible by voice and other subtle signs, like footprints left in the dust. With a quick movement, he stepped in front of Michele and grabbed an icy arm. "The Official had authorized resources to help you, but we have to plan."  Hobbes let go as the cold began to make his hand go numb. "Fawkes, tell her."

"'Chele, fifteen minutes. That much time won't make any difference in whatever you were gonna try."  Darien had started to make his way back down the hillside, out of view of the cameras she warned them of, hoping that Hobbes would follow.

She appeared in a shower of silvery flakes a few feet below him on the hillside. "All right, fifteen minutes."

Darien watched her back and she made her way down the hill with an easy stride. In the hour and a half it had taken Claire to decide he was fine and able for duty, his memory had returned. He now found himself sliding back into depression, thanks to large quantities of guilt. What Corvan had done to him, how he'd turned Darien against her so very easily. How he'd reacted, wanting nothing more than to hurt her, to use her and then throw her away, to bargain her away if it got him Cat in return. Darien remembered exactly what it was he'd done to her, and it came damn close to encompassing his worst fears and reminded him of why he hated this life so much, why they were always so careful about having counteragent along, why Bobby never hesitated to tranq him if he even suspected Darien was close to going over the edge. He'd become too damn dangerous.

About the only thing worse that he could have done would have been to kill her, and if she hadn't manipulated him into a different frame of mind, he might very well have. He'd been that angry at her.

When they arrived back at the vehicles, she ducked under the netting and reappeared with several bottles of water, which she shared out, and more pills. Hobbes caught his attention and, once he was facing him, he cleared his throat. "I'll give you two a couple, but I expect fifteen out of you after that, kid. Got it?"  He shook a finger in Michele's direction and she gave him a mock salute. Darien waited till Bobby had shut himself back in the van before screwing up his courage to speak.

"I'm sorry."  His voice was barely audible, even to his ears.

"For what?"  She had leaned back against the Jeep while swallowing her pills and downing the water.

Darien played with the top on his as he stepped closer to her. The bruise on her cheek stood out plainly, the swelling still obvious, the eye puffy and half-closed, making her look sleepy. He ran light fingers over the bruise, making her flinch slightly in reaction. "For this. I know this isn't the time to talk about it, about you and Corvan... damn, 'Chele, I don't know what I was thinking."

"You were thinking exactly what he wanted you to. Bet you were planning on trying to bargain me for Cat once you were done with me."  At his stunned look, she nodded slowly. "It wasn't you, not entirely anyway. He took your natural reaction and manipulated it. He's very good at what he does. I've watched him destroy peace accords in under ten minutes, start wars in thirty. I'm better at information exchange, he's better at twisting what's already there."

She tried to step away, but he set a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. "'Chele..."  He got stuck on her name, unsure what to say, how to apologize for what he had done. Moving his hand he slid the collar of her shirt aside, revealing the bandage there. He'd hoped that that part of the memory had been wrong, but the blood stains on the gauze told him a story more chilling, to him, than any of his most violent dreams. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, which he released rather raggedly. After what had happened, he would understand it if she took the twins and ran, never contacted him again.

"Darien, look at me. Please?"  With great reluctance, he opened eyes to meet hers. "Do you remember what you were feeling when you did this?"

"Alive," he whispered. "I felt alive."

Michele nodded. "And what was I feeling?"

Darien shook his head, refusing to believe that what he remembered her feeling could ever possibly be real. There had been such a joy in her, even as he did his worst, even as he raped her there in the sunshine and dappled shade provided by the trees.

"Who was teasing who?" she commented, as if she knew what was going on in him. She pushed off the Jeep and leaned against him with a sigh. "You have nothing to feel guilty over. I wanted it just as much as you did. And I felt just as alive as you did."

Darien began to shake at her touch, at her words. "I can't do this. I won't..."

*_Hush. Can you forgive me? I brought Bobby there_.*

Her presence in his mind was a comfort that he'd been afraid he'd never get to experience again. He wrapped his arms about her, not sure what was coming next for them, but willing to find out. *_Forgiven,_* he replied inexpertly. There was a sound behind them and Michele shifted slightly, turning her head.

"Yes, Bobby. We'll be right there."

"Ah, oh, okay then," Hobbes answered, then went back to the van.

Darien chuckled softly. "You are going to drive his paranoia crazy."

"I know."  She stepped out of his hold and looked at him. "Cat is safe?"

"Yes, armed guards and Eberts. Alex was transferred to Leavitt for a psych exam, once they realized she was the one who called Corvan." Darien rubbed the back of his neck, wishing things had gone another way.

Chele tipped her head to the side. "Well, that'll sort itself out in time. Come on, before Bobby comes after us again."

Moments later Darien stuck his head into the van via the open rear door. "'Sup partner?"

Hobbes twitched. "What is it about the two of you? Make some sort of noise, would ya?"

"You mean the great and powerful Bobby Hobbes isn't infallible?" Darien asked as he climbed in and crouched next to the seat Hobbes was in as he stared at a computer screen.

"Smart-ass. Do you see a curtain? Kid, get over here."  Michele climbed in as well, but kept her distance. "I can have five two-man back-up teams out here in a couple hours and we can storm the place, get your kid and whisk the lot of you off to safety."  Hobbes was watching her carefully, but her look was blank and revealed nothing about what she was thinking at the moment.

"Why?"

"The intel you gave the Official and the fact that he really doesn't want Chrysalis to have quicksilver tech in any form. He wants you to wipe the computer system while we're rescuing Kit," Darien answered. When he'd given preliminary agreement to the Official, he was strangely sure she would agree. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't see her allowing them to keep any part of Kit, even if it was just raw data.

She nodded slowly, as if contemplating his words. "How? And storming the place won't work, trust me"

Hobbes chuckled. "Didn't really think so, but we could provide a distraction for your escape."  She just looked at him. "You did say getting out would be more difficult, right?"

"Yes, it will be. And yes, a well-timed distraction will help, but getting Kit to safety is my number one priority."  Michele moved closer, having hunch over only slightly in the van.

"Covered. A team will be standing by to whisk him away to safety as soon as he's brought out, while we keep them busy. You and Fawkes will meet up with the kids at a location to be decided later. From there it's up to you."  Hobbes turned to look at Fawkes, knowing that this was the part he didn't like.

"You can go into hiding on your own, though the Official has requested you keep in contact for your safety -- monthly check ins, or something like that. It may be some time before you're really safe. Even if we break up Changeling, Chrysalis may come after you."  Darien had already decided that her leaving was for the best, both for her and the kids, at least until Claire figured out the gland. He could deal with living without them if they were safe. And that included safe from him.

"Corvan will come after me. He has to. Without me, there's no one to breed for them."  Her voice was harsh, but she regained control after a moment. "Thanks. I'll take the help."  She sat down on the floor of the van and leaned back against the wall. "What did you have in mind?"

Outside, the sun had finally slipped below the horizon.

They were plastered up against the outside wall of the building that faced the helipad. The quarter moon had just risen in the east, casting its pale white light across the sand. It would have left the two of them awash in it except that 'Chele was easily handling the quicksilver for both of them. He'd argued that they'd show on thermals, but she had a trick that canceled out the cold effect, leaving them truly invisible. His mind had wandered for a few minutes as they made their way slowly along the exterior wall, contemplating just a few small heists he could pull with her and this little trick. The fun they could have on their own, with no Agency to tug on his leash, no one after her....

*_Dare_...* she'd admonished gently, though with more than enough humor in her thoughts for him to know she found the idea tempting.

They were waiting for Hobbes to let them know he had finally gotten a lock on the lab's security system, so that Michele wouldn't have to try and fool the security at the same time they were making their way through the building. She was capable of doing it, but she had been honest and told them it took quite a bit of concentration and she'd have to divide her attention. She could manage on her own, but with Darien along the risk factor went up dramatically. Darien had told her point blank that she was not going to go in alone.

So Michele downloaded the information she'd stored in that mind of hers into the security overview program Alex had brought with her to the Agency. Seeing as she was a bit... tied up at the moment, neither Darien nor Hobbes thought she'd mind them using it. Much. They'd spent some time going over the data while they waited for the backup to arrive, and tried to establish a connection with the building's systems. It wasn't easy -- the lab was on its own power, and most transmissions were either satellite or cell tower, including the computer links. Eventually though, Bobby, with some help from Michele, was able to get into the system. Talking to it was more difficult. The security was tight, and Michele couldn't link to it with her mind. There were limits to what even she could do.

Bobby had promised to have the connection working by the time they were ready to head in, but they had been waiting nearly ten minutes now and didn't dare make any more noise than necessary. 'Chele was already messing with the security in their area so the sensors wouldn't pick up the sounds they couldn't help but make as they moved. Darien knew that if Bobby didn't get his ass in gear soon, she'd head inside anyway and he didn't think he'd be able to stop her. Darien leaned in close to her, found her ear by feel. "Five more minutes. He'll have it working," he whispered.

*_Five and no more. The overnight staff is minimal_.*  She turned her head slightly, moving it close enough to rest lightly against his. *_You don't have to speak aloud. I'll hear you like this. Just focus on me_.*

Darien followed her instructions, which involved more than just the words in his mind -- there were also directions that showed him what he'd need to do. It wasn't anything difficult, but would take some getting used to. *_A bit quieter this way, as well_.*  He tried and was surprised to find it easier than he'd thought. *_Is Kit all right?_*

*_Sleeping. I don't want to wake him till necessary_.*  The worry in her mental voice was thick, but he caught the overtone of something else. Another concern that wasn't directly related to the matter at hand.

*_'Chele_...*

"I'm in, Fawkes," Hobbes suddenly said in his ear, startling him. Michele's hand settling on his chest kept him from jumping out of his skin, but it was a near thing and left his heart pounding and adrenaline surging through him. 'Chele was handling the quicksilver for several reasons, not least of which was to avoid the risk of him going mad again. He would only use the gland if absolutely necessary.

Darien made a soft clicking noise that was the agreed-upon acknowledgment to Hobbes' communication. Then, with her hand tightly held in his, they made their way to the small gated entrance that ran along this wall. They were trusting Hobbes to lead them through the security measures, to tell them when cameras weren't aimed their way, direct them around or through the laser grids, keep them out of sight of the thermal cameras. He would also let them know when they would have to take a more direct approach and disarm or disable security themselves. Hobbes had no control over the systems, he could only see them and give them the necessary warnings or advice.

It worked, though. Michele, and occasionally even Darien, could handle the few obstacles they encountered. Within minutes they were inside the building and making their way down, into the lab proper via an emergency stairwell. The people awake and moving about were few and far between, and the stray guards making rounds were easily avoided even with the thermals they were wearing.  Neither Michele nor Darien gave a damn why security seemed to be so relaxed on this night.  Anything that went their way was not something they'd complain about.

Once they reached the correct level, it was Michele who took over, leading them as she followed the link she had to Kit, as well as the data in her head about where he was being kept. They found themselves in a true lab, with banks of computers and equipment of every type imaginable, including embryo storage. There were small cryo-pods that Darien recognized, and what looked like infants in tanks of water. He didn't even want to contemplate the possibility that they might be alive.

Michele's sudden reappearance, with a look of disgust and horror on her face, gave him all the answer he needed. Color returned to his sight seconds later, and he watched as she approached one of the tanks, her hand coming up to rest against the thick glass. She shuddered. "Alive, what there is to them."

Darien moved to her side. "What is this?"  Now that he was closer he could see the rise and fall of the infant's chest, noticed the wires that trailed from the small body, up out of the tank, and to the nearby machines. It twitched in reaction to something and opened it's eyes to stare about itself blindly. The eyes were nothing but solid blood-red orbs.

"Gland experiments using the information I stole from the Agency. They wanted to create a gland that would develop with the child, but they haven't figured out how to remove the flaw yet."  She backed away from the tank, shaking her head to clear it. "The poor thing is stuck in a state of quicksilver madness. There's just enough counteragent in the liquid to keep it from going Stage Five."

Darien didn't want to know how she knew all that, didn't care. All he wanted was to end it -- this poor creature would never have a real life, never know anything but the discomfort of quicksilver, perhaps never leave its watery environment. "'Chele, you didn't know what they were going to do."  He was trying to ease the guilt that emanated from her.

"Of course I did," she snapped. "Arnaud had been working with them, remember?"  She moved further into the room. "We have to get Kit. Now."

Darien followed her through the lab to where a large glass window was located. On the far side was a fairly large room filled with toys, monitoring equipment, a bed with a sleeping guard, and a crib, with his son. Darien sucked in a surprised breath at seeing him lying quietly on back, arms flung above his head as he slept, oblivious to the fact his parents were standing just a few feet away. He was wearing one of those footed jammie things, with his head turned slightly towards the window so that Darien had no problems seeing that face, or the dark brown hair, a stray lock of which was curled on the infants forehead. "'Chele..."

She put a finger to her lips and he shut his mouth on the rest of his words. Setting her hands on the glass, she closed her eyes and tipped her head slightly to the side. *_Remember your promise to me? To protect them_?*  Darien nodded, not sure why she was reminding him of it right now. *_I'm holding you to it_.*  She stepped over to the door of the room and, with a shove from her mind to get it open, rushed inside with Darien behind her. The guard never had a chance to do more than sit up before Michele was upon him. She didn't hesitate -- with a quick move, she snapped his neck and left the body where it fell.

She was at the crib a moment later, lifting Kit, who was crying in fright, and cradling him to her. She whispered soothing words to the child until he calmed. "Come here, Dare."  When he joined her, looking over her shoulder at his son, she smiled up at him. *_Kit, meet Darien, your father_.*  It was more than just the words -- with her abilities, she connected the two of them. Kit's small mind went from slight fear to radiant joy at the meeting. Kit would always recognize him now, Darien somehow knew, and this contact was something to treasure, something to hold onto, something to fight for.

Alarms began to go off then as the attack from the outside commenced to facilitate their escape. Michele handed Kit to him. "Take him and get out."

"Not without you," Darien argued, even as he took his son in his arms. He saw the look on her face, knew that she was going to stay, going to do what she could to shut down this place and, even though the Official had asked her to, Darien would rather she didn't. They could drop a bomb on the place later.

"Kit, Dare. Protect Kit and Cat."  She set her hand on him and let the quicksilver flow over them both. "Go. Please."

He knew she was right. "Michele, be careful."  He hesitated for one more second and then, after making sure he had a secure hold on Kit, turned and fled the room. He made his way out through the lab, dodging both techs and weapon-wielding soldiers, replacing her quicksilver with his own when it flaked off. He still felt her in his mind. She hadn't dropped the contact that allowed them to communicate so easily. He could feel her anger as she broke through the computer's security and systematically began to destroy every record, every piece of data, every bit of work that had ever been stored there; felt her send the order to erase all data to all the other computer systems that Chrysalis owned; felt her set the self-destruct code for the building.

He had made it out by then and was met by a team from the Agency who, as planned, took Kit from him. They took the baby boy to a nearby vehicle, which would take him to safety. 

Hobbes was waiting for Darien, to head back in if necessary to get Michele. Anger and frustration burned across the link, making Darien's head ache. It was weaker now, though -- something or someone perhaps was blocking her. She tried to get past it, but it burned her mind and, through the connection, his as well.

*_'Chele_!*  he all but screamed at her with his mind.

*_Run_!* was her only response.

Darien ran back towards the lab, even as everyone came boiling out. The electronic voice announcing the impending destruction could be heard counting down the final seconds. Darien found himself flung to the ground, a heavy weight upon his back. He struggled to get up when Hobbes' voice penetrated through the overwhelming need to find her, to save her.

"Fawkes, it's too late."

"No, damn it, she's still alive, I can feel her."  Darien rolled and threw off Bobby, only to feel the ground shudder beneath his body and low rumble vibrate him hard enough to make his teeth ache. The ground shifted upward momentarily then dropped, settling several feet lower than before. There was a sudden burst of joy and release, tinged with just a hint of regret, across his senses, then nothing. A blank wall where Michele used to be.

Dust rose into the air in great billowing clouds, blocking off the small amount of light the moon had been providing, leaving him lying in an inky pool of darkness.

*_'Chele_?*  he tried, with little hope. Somehow he knew what that surge of emotions had meant, knew that she... that she.... "No!" he screamed into the night air. He forced himself to his feet, headed for the remains of the lab.

Hobbes stopped him, yet again. "Fawkes, help is on the way. If she's alive, they'll find her."  Darien had continued moving, and only stopped when he reached the edge of the shallow crater that had formed where the lab had been. The explosion had imploded it, causing the complex to collapse into itself. The buildings that had been standing on the desert floor were now several yards below him, shattered and broken beyond salvaging, only small pieces remaining to identify them as to what they once were. It was a scene horribly reminiscent of pictures he'd seen on television many months before.

Darien sank to the ground heavily, numb. "'Chele?" he called aloud in disbelief.

Hobbes stood behind him, unsure what to do. "Fawkes... Darien, we have to go. Your kids still need to be moved to safety."

It seemed to take forever for the words to penetrate past the emptiness in his mind. "Kids?"

"Yeah Fawkes, the twins. Kit and Cat. Remember?"  Hobbes wasn't sure how to help him -- even with his words of possible rescue of Michele, he knew the chances were slim, but he also knew if he didn't get Fawkes moving he might never break him out of the cycle of loss he was swiftly becoming buried under.

It was Michele's own words that broke him free. Echoing softly through his mind -- 'You'll keep them safe, won't you? Kit and Cat? You won't abandon them, will you?'  He groaned, his agony finding a voice, and then pushed himself to his feet. Raising a shaking hand to his face, he rubbed his eyes, which had become irritated by all the dust in the air, and was surprised to discover he'd been crying. "I remember, Bobby. The kids come first."  He managed a few faltering steps away from the hole in the ground, before pausing one last time to look back. "Bobby?"

"They'll tear the place apart until we know. I promise," Hobbes said to him.

With a nod, Darien was able to turn and move away, with Hobbes right beside him.

When they arrived at the Agency, hoping to find out where Darien would need to go to meet up with the kids, they instead found bodies. The first one was lying on the floor in the lobby, a bullet in the back of his head. Hobbes' gun came out instantly, and he squatted down to check on the man. Hobbes removed the face mask he wore and looked carefully at the visage revealed. Darien was standing nearby, unable to really feel anything. The drive here had done nothing to help him. He was worried about the twins, but because he'd still been in contact with Michele when.... when the lab had been destroyed, his mind was caught in a seemingly endless loop going over and over the last few seconds of contact.

"Fawkes, this isn't one of our guys," Hobbes said as he got to his feet. "Come on."

Hobbes led the way deeper into the building, down towards the level where both the Keep and the secure room for Cat were. When they discovered signs of a struggle, and the bodies of a couple of agents they recognized, Darien's mind snapped out of the groove it had become stuck in. "Ah, crap. Cat."  He took off at a dead run, ignoring the shouted protests of his partner.

Hobbes caught up with him in the nursery. The nurse herself was unconscious, sprawled on the bed. The crib was empty. Darien was sitting on the floor, where just a few days ago Michele had collapsed, holding the pink and yellow blanket Cat had showed up in, and her favorite toy. The duck. He looked up at Hobbes in total bewilderment, his mind too overcome to grasp what was happening. Had it only been days ago that his life had been a living hell, when he'd suffered from mind-searing pain and nearly overwhelming depression, only to have it completely turned around with the return of Michele? She'd brought not only hope but a family, his family, into his life. To have them ripped away so suddenly, so unceremoniously, just seemed far, far too cruel.

"Bobby, what's going on?"

"I wish I knew, Fawkes."  Darien wasn't sure what Hobbes saw as he looked down at him, but it was enough for him to realize that Darien was at the overload point. "Stay here. I'm going to check out the Keep."

Darien nodded and saw the sympathy in his friend's eyes. Then he turned back to the items in his hands and folded in on himself, not wanting to face the loss of both Michele and Cat in a single evening. It was Claire's voice that finally brought him back to the world about him.

"Darien, are you all right? Bobby told us about the lab."  She looked worried as she crouched before him next to the crib.

"Kit. Is Kit safe? Or did we fuck up that one, as well?"  Darien's voice was raw with unshed tears, with tightly contained emotions, with pain and heartache that only had one small glimmer of hope remaining.

"That's what you need to go find out," the Official said from somewhere nearby.

Darien pushed himself to his feet, still holding the blanket and the toy. The Official had a bruise forming on his forehead and was looking a bit pale. "Corvan and his men broke in while you were attempting the rescue. He locked us in the padded room."

"He wanted Cat, and did some damage to find her," Claire said as she stood before Darien and lifted his right hand to check the monitor lying coiled there. That's when Darien realized she was injured as well. She was sporting a black eye and torn lip. "We didn't tell him, but he knew."

Eberts, with Hobbes beside him, came into the room then. Eberts was a mass of bruises, one eye nearly swollen shut and the right side of his head bloody.

Darien closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Thank you," he said softly, and he meant it. Even though none of them had been very happy over the situation, they had all done their best to protect Cat. He couldn't blame them for failing. It was his responsibility.

"We've lost contact with the car transporting your son," Eberts said, his voice distorted by the swelling of his face. "I'm sorry, Darien, but he might very well have gotten the information from me."

Darien's eyes had opened as Eberts was speaking, and now he shook his head at the man. "Not your fault. How do you stop yourself from thinking?"

Claire had checked over the nurse and then returned to his side, holding a syringe of counteragent. Without a word of complaint, he held out an arm and didn't even feel the usual sting of pain as she broke through the tender skin at his elbow to inject it into his system.

"Fawkes, you and Hobbes need to go check on the situation," the Official said, anger creeping into his tone.

Darien nodded and set the blanket in the crib, the duck atop it. "I think we should, too."

What they found didn't make either of them feel better. The transport car had been forced off the road, both the driver and the back up were dead, and the car seat, which Kit had been securely tucked into, was gone.

Somehow Darien held it together, anger coming to the surface. The need to find his children was foremost in his mind, along with a growing need for revenge against Corvan. They spent two days trying to track down Corvan and the kids, while Darien also waited for word from the rescue operations at the lab. People had been rescued out there, but so far only those from Chrysalis. Michele had been deep underground when the place had collapsed, and hope was growing fainter every day.

The Official told them about the discovery of a burned-out SUV found on a lonely back road well south of the city. There had also been a pair of shot up sedans found with it. Eberts' jaw had been broken during his interrogation, so he simply handed the directions to the location over to the agents with a nod.

The drive was mostly silent, neither man having anything to say. Over the last couple of days, as they followed stray clues and false leads, they had talked and settled things between them. Both had apologized for various things that had happened over the last year and agreed that their partnership, their friendship, was worth far more than holding onto the lingering remains of things done out of desperation. Claire had even unbent at last, as she realized she'd been holding onto her anger just because she thought there could be nothing else. It was odd -- Michele had begun the chain of events that had nearly broken them beyond repair, and yet it was also Michele who had brought them back together again.

They came upon the crash scene and knew it was bad from the moment they stopped the van. A huge area was taped off, there were several teams marking off evidence for later collection, and the coroner was on site. Lying on the ground next to the van were three hastily-covered bodies -- one obviously an adult, and the others tiny.

Darien found himself unable to move closer, the stench of burned plastic and metal making his stomach roil in protest. Hobbes must have caught the look on his face.

"Easy, my friend. We don't know anything yet."  When Darien nodded tightly, he wandered away to find out what was going on.

It was the familiar gold pins on the bodies of those in the sedans that made the picture look bleak. They all wore the small double helix that meant they were members of Chrysalis. If this had been Corvan and the twins, then it was entirely possible that Chrysalis had tracked down where Corvan was, or perhaps Corvan called them for another bargaining session, and things had gone sour. Bobby stood by Darien's side as the coroner gave a very preliminary and less-than-detailed description of the scene. Darien stopped listening after the man confirmed that the children were very young -- only a few months old -- and their sexes, based on other evidence, being one boy and one girl.

Hobbes got Darien back into the van and then, after a couple of phone calls to pull the right strings, claimed jurisdiction of the scene.

"Fawkes, we don't know anything yet. Let the Keep run some tests first."  Hobbes stood outside the passenger door, looking over the scene as they waited for the Agency teams to arrive and take over. For the time being, the police continued to search for evidence. They were cooperating for a change, perhaps realizing that this particular 'accident' was a bit more personal for the two agents.

Darien nodded. "I know, Bobby, but...." he trailed off and waved towards the scene. "It just makes sense. Corvan swiped the kids and tangled with Chrysalis over them."  The hand began to shake and he ran it across his face, trying not to lose hope, trying to hold it together. "I promised her I'd protect them, and... and I failed."

 "Unless a man or woman has experienced the darkness of the soul he or she can know nothing of that transforming laughter without which no hint of the ultimate reality of the opposites can be faintly intuited."

_Helen Luke may have been wise enough to realize this and share it with the world, but she fails to tell us what we should do when we fall back into that darkness._

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	8. Epilogue

Epilogue

Michael sat behind the wheel of the SUV, driving north still. He'd been driving for several days now, trying to put some distance between himself and San Diego, hoping to maybe get far enough away that, even if Fawkes and his friends realized it was all a fake, the trail would be so cold there would be little or nothing to follow.

In the back seat, the twins had once again cried themselves to sleep. No amount of comfort he tried to give them could ease their pain, just as no amount of comfort he tried to gain from their presence could ease his. They were wise enough, even at their tender age, to know that he was the cause of their unhappiness. Michele had made sure they knew what he was, even if they were really too young to understand it. He could read them, but he could not sway them. They wanted their mother, whom they knew was gone. That intimate connection that allowed them to share even the slight emotions in their minds before their birth was cut off now, leaving them feeling empty and lost.

Cat was especially upset. She had been pulled rudely from a place where she was happy, taken away from her favorite blankie and toys. To her, both that ugly duck and her father had been toys. Kit was upset too, through her sharing the knowledge of their father with him. Kit had not had nearly enough time to know the man, but Cat had made sure to share every experience her unique mind could recall. Michael would just have to be patient -- one day they would understand that Fawkes would never have been able to care for them. He would have been unable to help them through the difficult times to come, when their powers began to fully manifest themselves. True, he might have been a source of comfort in the loss of their mother, but Michael could do that just as well. Or so he hoped.

It was Michele's death that had sent him on this unplanned journey. He had fully intended to return to the welcoming home of Changeling, to see to it that these children were raised and trained to become the next generation of agents, designed to protect the country from all enemies, including those from within. The loss of Michele -- his twin, his love, his life -- had changed that. He had just finished interrogating those of the Agency, to find out where Kit was going to be taken once freed from the lab, when there had been an explosion of emotions in his mind and then nothing, a complete blank where the connection to her used to be. He'd found himself on his knees, one of his agents looking down at him in concern, with tears running down his cheeks. He'd been stunned. She'd died, sacrificed herself in order to be sure Kit would be free -- free from him, from Chrysalis, from Changeling -- and he suddenly found himself needing to make sure that happened.

Without any hesitation, he had drawn his gun and shot the agent with him, retrieved Cat with only minimal damage to her nurse, and then proceeded to kill every Changeling agent that had come with him. Once out of the city, he'd called Stark to arrange for a meeting, and with his help had secured Kit as well. When Kit arrived, along with the other items he'd requested, he changed the plan and slaughtered not only the Chrysalis agents but also the near-perfect doubles Chrysalis had brought to act as decoys. He had set the SUV on fire with no regret, only an odd sense of purpose that he was doing the right thing, for the twins and for Michele.

He would have taken the time to kill Stark, maybe even destroyed Chrysalis' American holdings entirely, but the need to find a safe place to hole up had had to come first. Michael had stripped the minds of those who had delivered the items he'd needed and had learned that Stark had somehow found out about Michele's little problem dealing with EM fields. That was how Michael had held her captive throughout her pregnancy, by trapping her in a room surrounded by a low level EM field that interfered with her powers. It had worked as long as she was pregnant, since any attempt to interact with or disrupt the field, risked injury to both herself and her unborn children, as the field interfered with the way her body generated and absorbed power.

It was only after the twins had been born that she began to systematically try and break through it. She had eventually succeeded, though by then she had already been injected with the virus in hopes of keeping her under control. A creative little plan; as long as she received the antidote, the virus remained dormant. Once activated, however, it would attack her and begin to do its best to kill her. 

He knew how well she adapted -- it was what she'd been designed to do -- so the virus was designed the same way. Using her own DNA, the Changeling bio-techs had come up with a virus that would also adapt. Every time she survived an attack, it would use the knowledge of what her body did to regroup and attack her again. Eventually, one of three things would occur: she would defeat the virus completely and adapt, a stalemate would be achieved and both would survive, or the virus would win.

It was hoped that once she became ill that she'd come back, realizing that she couldn't risk Cat's young life without help, help only Changeling could provide. That was until they discovered she'd downloaded vast quantities of information, including what was in the antidote to the virus. With that information, she could probably have come up with something that would do as a substitute. As the days and then weeks went by, it was assumed that she had done exactly that, and they had been forced to cut off her other resources -- access to accounts, to contacts, to safe houses, to labs. They'd forced her into a corner. So they had turned to watching Fawkes and the Agency, turned to the tracker that had been implanted during the Phase II process.

In the end, though, it didn't matter that Stark had learned about the EM field, trapping her in that one room and leaving her unable to escape the lab. Michele was already dying. According to the information he'd accessed from the Agency computer before she'd slammed the back door shut, the virus had mutated to the point where even the cure -- not the antidote, but the actual cure they had on hand to use if she was lured back into the fold -- would not save her. The pills, the cobbled-together antidote she'd been using, was nearly ineffective. She could no longer eat solid food, since the virus had ravaged her stomach and digestive system so badly -- half her pill collection had been nutritional supplements to keep herself as healthy as she could until the twins were safe. According to the Keeper's findings, Michele had had maybe six months to live. Only her unique system, which enabled her to absorb energy from the outside, allowed her to retain any functionality at all. She had already lost a fair amount of weight, and every resurgence of the virus took its toll, leaving her body just a little bit weaker. And she had known it.

Changeling had, in effect, killed her, and Michael found himself unable to reconcile that fact with the work they'd been doing over the years. It had been hard enough on him when those he answered to wanted to use her for breeding purposes once the first successful pregnancy had been known. He'd believed them when they said it was necessary. Just five years of breeding, just five more sets of twins using invitro techniques, they had promised. Then she could return to work. But they had assumed she was still Michael's, that she hadn't been changed by her encounter with Fawkes, and that was the furthest thing from the truth.

Michele had found in Darien Fawkes the one thing she had never found with him: life. And in the end, it had had been Fawkes and her children causing the regret in her mind, and not Michael.

Staring out the windshield, Michael found the car slowing and he pulled over. Sitting there along the tree-lined back road, he finally broke down and cried, mourning the loss of his sister, his twin, his life. It was the quiet sounds of the twins that finally drew him back from the edge of despair. Michele might be gone, but part of her lived on in the children she had carried and borne. He would do his best to raise them as she would have -- with honor and, above all, free.

The quiet atmosphere and pink-hued sky was usually enough to encourage Darien to fill the silence with words, to create an utterly useless conversation with the dead man that rested below the neatly trimmed grass that he sat upon, but not tonight. In fact, instead of his usual position facing the headstone of his brother Kevin, he leaned back against it. The chill of the granite found its way through his clothes, leaving him even colder, but he didn't care. His knees were drawn up to his chest with his hands dangling loosely in between them. The look of utter pain and loss etched on his face was plain to the few who wandered past him. They would glance at him, then turn away, almost as if afraid that whatever had caused such pain to him would suddenly be thrust upon them.

After a couple weeks of hope -- fading hope, but hope nonetheless -- Claire had today, just a few hours ago, confirmed his worst fears. One of the bodies recovered from the Chrysalis breeding facility had indeed been Michele's. That wasn't all that big a surprise; the hole in his heart had told him she was long gone, had died when the implosion had occurred. He had the memory of her final moments embedded in his mind, to both torture him and give him a strange sort of comfort.

No one else had been found alive after day five of the search. Some of those found had died mere hours before discovery, finally succumbing to their injuries, thirst, or in one case both. The body that had been tentatively identified as Michele's hadn't been found for another week, and Claire had spent two days running tests before coming to the inevitable conclusion that it was her. That blow had almost been easy to take, but Claire had gone on to tell him that Michele had already been dying. That the virus she'd been fighting was one designed to kill her, and that it was succeeding.

Now he understood her reluctance to tell him what had happened between them a year ago, her unwillingness to commit to any sort of plans after Kit was back where he belonged. All of Darien's fantasies, hopes of a maybe having a life with her and the twins, had been for naught. In, at most, half a year she would have been gone. As dead as she was now. The virus created just for her by Changeling having done its job.

He didn't blame her for not telling him. The burden she had been carrying around was more than enough to offset any anger he might have felt. The memories, the hope, the love she had given him would be something he would always treasure. He just wished there could have been more for the two of them. Maybe, as she had once commented, if they had met under different circumstances, they could have had a real life together. Shared some happiness and joy for more than a few short days. Perhaps had a chance at more children. Perhaps...

He let the fantasy of what might have been fade away and allowed reality to intrude. It was the second bit of news that had led Darien to this place, sitting over his brother's grave without an ounce of hope in his soul, with nothing but pain, despair, and guilt in his heart and mind.

Those small bodies recovered from the wrecked SUV, bodies burnt nearly beyond recognition, had been confirmed as the twins. Claire had had tears running down her face as she told him, as she explained that she'd run every test she could think of and they always came back confirming the worst. DNA had matched perfectly for Cat, and Kit's was close enough to hers to be identified. She'd even found traces of quicksilver in the pitiful remains. There could be no doubt; Kit and Cat were dead.

Darien had failed in the one and only promise he had ever wanted to keep in his life. And the guilt was overwhelming. 

"You know Fawkes, you always were predictable," a voice -- a decidedly female voice -- proclaimed into the still air, breaking the silence that had kept him motionless.

"And how the hell did you manage to get out?" Darien asked as Alex closed the distance and sat down next to him.

"It was simple, Fawkes. You tell them what they want to hear enough times and they eventually believe it."  She emulated his position and stared off into the distance. "I heard about what happened. I'm sorry."

Darien let the words wash over him without feeling anything. While he hadn't forgiven her for calling Corvan, he also knew it didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.

"Is it your turn to talk us into getting shit-faced and then falling back into bed, or we gonna do this right this time?" he asked quietly.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."  As she spoke, she reached into the pocket of her jacket and withdrew a gun.

Darien grunted and did the same, though the gun surprised her a bit, seeing as it was hers. "You never picked it up, and I never got the chance to return it," he explained. "What with you going Section Eight and all."

If his words bothered her, she didn't let it show. "Well, Fawkes?"

"Rock, paper, scissors, Monroe. Or is that too complicated for you?"  Darien sent a wordless apology to both Bobby and Claire, hoping that someday they would understand. At least they'd made up in the last few weeks. They'd settled the last few issues between them and agreed to move on. With them, at least, his conscience was clear.

With Monroe it was different. As Bobby had said, their relationship had always been based on pain. What better way to deal with the pain now than together?

It took Alex a moment to figure out what he was referring to, but when she did she gave him a grim smile. "Always a game with you, Fawkes."

Darien shrugged. "Good bet I'll win this one."

She nodded, and together they began the chant. "Once. Twice. Three..."

There was a pause, and then Darien finished it for the both of them.

"Shoot..."

Finis


End file.
